


All Hail the New Kids

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Fun, Holding Hands, Jedi, Kissing, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, Stormtrooper Culture, The Force, Threesome - F/M/M, Trees, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe had realized even before Finn woke up that he had picked a challenging person--Force help him, maybe <em>two</em> challenging people--to get himself mixed up with. Somehow he still wasn't prepared for Finn and Rey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/gifts).



> I had this idea about how Stormtroopers would be deterred from developing potentially loyalty-dividing sexual relationships and things kind of... got out of hand? 
> 
> With many thanks to RubyNye for being a most patient recipient of a horribly belated birthday present, to Celli for encouraging this, and to AgentMal for beta!
> 
> Title is from "Renegades" by X Ambassadors.

Finn managed to pretend there was nothing strange in having his own private refresher cubicle attached the room he was assigned in the Resistance base. He didn't think he entirely managed to fool Poe; probably he asked too many questions about what time he was allowed to use it (any time he wanted?) and what the water rations were for the wet shower ( _as much as he wanted??_ ).

Poe didn't seem to mind, though. He just smiled and reassured Finn again and again that he could do whatever he wanted in the refresher. He even winked, once, and Finn managed not to look around for what he was signaling or ask him what the wink meant. He was learning it was better to just roll with things sometimes.

The next morning he fully intended to use the refresher in a totally normal, routine way, despite the fact that he was the only one in it. 

Eliminate waste, check. Clean hands, check.

Perform standard morning discharge...

He quickly discovered that there weren't any screens to watch during his morning discharge. He'd done it without sometimes, when he was out on field exercises and they were using camp latrine setups. But that had always been with his cohort around him going through the same routine. Without a screen to watch the lonely quiet became obvious; the disruption in routine quickly communicated itself to his penis, which remained uncooperatively soft in his hand.

He closed his eyes and focused. It had been weeks since he performed a normal morning hygiene routine. Discharge was necessary. He would start having night-discharges otherwise, or experience involuntary tumescence like he was a spotty-faced cadet again. 

He could solve this. He would just _remember_ what ought to be on the screens. He pictured the familiar screen, mentally selecting his favorite target practice sim. Yeah, okay. He could do this. It wasn't hard. 

Finn huffed, his mental image dissolving instantly, and looked down, giving himself another squeeze. It definitely was not hard.

He decided not to waste more time on the issue. He was with the Resistance now; he had a private refresher. He could come back and discharge whenever he felt like it. He would get used to it. 

In the meantime, there was a wet shower to try out, complete with all the hot water he wanted.

* * *

Poe had realized even before Finn woke up that he had picked a challenging person--Force help him, maybe _two_ challenging people--to get himself mixed up with. Finn had been raised practically from birth as a Stormtrooper. Whatever else the First Order had taught him, Poe was pretty sure he wouldn't have learned any of the ways of going about starting a relationship that Poe was used to. Stormtroopers probably got assigned to each other, or--

Poe didn't want to think about what Finn might be used to.

He had tried to sound Rey out a little, before she left on her mission to find Luke Skywalker. She at least had grown up among people--although what he'd seen of the scavenger camps on Jakku didn't give him great hope that Rey would be any nearer to his own frame of reference. 

She definitely hadn't seemed to understand what Poe was getting at, so that had been the end of any negotiation about balancing their respective feelings for Finn, let alone exploring any adjoining feelings they might have about each other. The whole point had been moot, with Finn still unconscious and Rey headed off on a quest that might consume years as easily as days. Poe had braced himself for future difficult conversations and set the matter aside.

For some reason he had not thought to brace himself for Finn, on his second day out of sickbay, asking Poe about his masturbatory habits in the middle of lunch in the mess.

"Uh..." Poe glanced around to see who was overhearing this or might be willing to provide covering fire. He and Finn had a table to themselves at the moment, though, and no one was paying them any attention.

He thought about asking Finn to repeat that, but he didn't really want to give everyone a second chance to hear Finn asking, " _Do you usually masturbate in your own refresher? Or is there somewhere else?_ "

"Well, I don't usually, not there," Poe said as evenly as he could. "I have sometimes. I think most people do at least once in a while. I mean, you're naked, it's nice and warm in the wet shower, you--"

Finn looked suddenly appalled. "In the shower? The shower is for getting _clean_."

Poe mentally upped the difficulty of this whole enterprise by several notches. "Sure, buddy. And beds are for sleeping, but--"

Finn sat back from the table like Poe had just suggested whipping it out in the middle of the mess.

Poe looked down at his plate and poked at his food, giving both of them a minute to absorb this news about the other's worldview. God, if Finn was used to only doing it in the refresher, and not even in the _shower_ , what--

"Is it always alone, though?" Finn asked tentatively. "Or--if you're alone, are there things to watch while you're doing it?"

Poe felt his face go hot, which was stupid. He'd talked about sex and porn with people he wanted to take to bed; for that matter, he'd had sex in his share of refreshers, usually of the not-very-fresh spaceport bar variety. His own--or Finn's--would be a pleasant upgrade. 

But he'd never felt about any of those people quite the way he felt about Finn. It had never _mattered_ like this.

"I, uh--yeah, there are things to watch," Poe said, when he had his voice and face more or less under control. He looked up and Finn was watching him with a steady, curious gaze, like Poe's answer didn't matter to him personally at all. "It's kind of--people's preferences are very individual, though, you know? Kind of depends on what things you like. And it doesn't have to be alone. Some people like it best that way, but most think it's better together. I... I like it better together."

"Oh, good!" Finn's sudden smile was dazzlingly bright, and Poe couldn't help smiling back. "Do you--I know you have a team, you probably have a routine, but would you mind if I joined you? I don't mind what we watch, but it's strange doing it alone."

Poe opened his mouth to try to clarify everything Finn seemed to be assuming, and then closed it. He looked down at what was left on his tray and shook his head. Lost cause, time to pull back. 

"Let's, uh--let's not talk about this here, Finn."

Finn sat up straight like Poe had just applied an electric shock. "Oh! Sorry, it's--man, while you were eating, too, I shouldn't have--"

Poe shook his head, starting to smile despite himself. At least the topic was open, now, right? At least he could start figuring out where the hell he and Finn were in relation to each other and start plotting some kind of course. "It's okay, I'm happy to talk about it. It's not putting me off my food. It's just--kind of private. You don't do it with just anyone, right? And you don't want just anyone hearing this discussion, either."

Finn looked faintly puzzled again, but before Poe could worry about which part of that seemed weird to him, he was nodding again and smiling. Poe stood up, grabbing his tray, and Finn immediately followed suit, letting Poe usher him out.

* * *

Poe guided Finn to his quarters, just down the corridor from Finn's own. The layout was the same; Finn could see through the half-open door that Poe's refresher was as small as his own. It would be difficult to fit two in there, let alone any kind of team.

Finn's eyes went to Poe's bunk, the same generous meter wide as his own, with a soft-looking pillow and brightly-colored non-standard blankets. It _looked_ clean enough. Poe probably hadn't really meant--he _couldn't_ have meant--

"Have a seat," Poe said behind him, and Finn jumped, jerking his gaze away from Poe's bed. 

Poe smiled and tapped the back of a chair Finn had barely noticed, pushed up to a little table just inside the room. There were two chairs, and once Finn sat down, Poe pulled out the other and sat across from him, leaning in with his elbow on the table.

Finn mirrored him automatically, bringing their heads together nearly close enough to--

Finn wasn't thinking about that. He just wanted to find out if Poe would mind being cohort-mates of a sort, for morning discharge, or let Finn join in with his team's routine. 

Poe didn't lean back. His eyes were steady on Finn, searching for something, and Finn almost managed not to squirm. "Okay, so tell me about how this works where you're from. I think our customs--routines--are a little different, and I don't want to make it weird for you."

Finn sat back a little, feeling a mix of disappointment and something like vertigo. How different could it be? It was just discharge. Reproductive hygiene was different from other kinds, but--wait, did Poe think Finn was talking about _actual reproduction_? 

That must be different in the Resistance, but surely Finn hadn't come anywhere near meriting a chance? He hadn't seen any babies around--but no, of course they wouldn't be on D'Qar, this was a military base. Babies and children would be kept away somewhere safe; people here would just send samples. Did Poe think Finn was angling for the right to send a sample, or neglecting his duty to collect one, or...?

"Finn? Finn, breathe. It's okay."

Finn took a deep breath and let it out slowly, keeping his eyes on Poe, whose brow was wrinkled now in concern.

"Look," Poe said. "We're not the First Order, so people do things their own way. That means there are lots of options. It's all okay, however you like to do things, whatever you're used to. Nobody's going to push you to do things one way or another. Definitely not me. I'm here for what you want, buddy. I just need to know what that is. Tell me about how it used to be, okay?"

Finn swallowed hard. "I want to do it the Resistance way. Your way. I'm not First Order either."

Poe nodded. "I know, I know you're not. But this isn't battle orders, it's just--" Poe waved toward the half-open door. "Your routine in the refresher. I know it's weird to describe it, but just... Try? Like I'm from an agametic species and I don't know anything about how humans work. Okay?"

Finn nodded, feeling steadier. Right. It was just routine, that was all. Poe wanted him to describe it. He could do that, and then they would realize they were really the same after all, and they could still be cohort-mates.

"Every morning, I, we--my cohort, or work-team--maybe eight or twelve of us--maybe sixteen or twenty when we were younger, organized in teams of four--we would all go to the refresher at the same time in the morning. Big refresher, you know?" Finn flung his arms out wide, picturing that gleaming clean space, flushers and sinks and sonic showers all lined up. 

"And everyone uses the flusher first, and then cleans their hands--" Poe was nodding along, so far so good. "And then we would go back to the flushers for morning discharge."

Poe went still. 

"Masturbation," Finn added, using again the Republic word he'd learned from the bits of propaganda they'd been shown to teach them about their enemies. Maybe the First Order word wasn't obvious; it did also refer to weapons, after all. 

"And the screens would activate, after we washed our hands," Finn went on, searching Poe's face for some sign of recognition. He'd said he liked not doing it alone; he'd _said_ there were things to watch. "I usually did a shooting sim, but there were puzzles and things. Personal choice was allowed, except sometimes there were mandatory videos to watch. News bulletins, or messages from the Supreme Leader, or just--I didn't understand some of them."

Poe looked down, rubbing his forehead. From behind his hand he said, "You would... masturbate while watching messages from Snoke."

"Not all the time!" Finn said quickly. "I wasn't asking to watch something like _that_ with you. Just a--maybe a flying sim, or something? That's probably what you like, right? If you have one that works on eye and voice, I like having both hands..."

For a few awful seconds Poe didn't say anything. Finn couldn't imagine how different Resistance routines were-- _beds?_ \--but Poe had asked him. Poe had said it was all right to do things the way he was used to.

"Yeah, me too," Poe said finally, looking up with a smile. He looked tired, but his smile seemed genuine. "I like having both hands free. But I, uh--I also like sitting down, you know? So I can enjoy how it feels, instead of just getting it over with as fast as I can."

Finn blinked, trying to imagine it. It did feel good, of course; all bodily functions felt good in a certain way. He could admit that discharge was usually his favorite. He couldn't imagine dragging it out for long, but then yesterday he couldn't have imagined an unrationed wet shower and today he had stayed under the spray for _six minutes_. Not even doing anything for two of those minutes! Just _standing there_. With _hot water_ pouring over him.

Finn nodded firmly. "I think I could do that. If that's what you like to do."

He looked down at the chairs. There were two, conveniently, and they could be moved anywhere in the room, so...

"I meant it about the bed, too," Poe said, and Finn looked up sharply. He had to be joking this time.

"Come on, it doesn't make _that_ much mess, right?" Poe asked, sounding like one of those guys who insisted that they didn't have to sterilize their hands after urinating because urine was basically sterile already. Poe seemed to realize he was going too far, raising his hands placatingly. "I'll put down a tarp, okay?"

Finn looked at the bed. It would be soft under them. For a moment he imagined sitting in a perfectly-contoured gunner's seat to discharge, with Poe behind him in the pilot's seat--or Poe and Rey both--on the Falcon maybe--not really flying, but training with sims, and--

He shook his head slightly. That was worse than beds, making that kind of mess in a place where they _worked_. "I, uh. That seems. Okay."

"And a flying sim," Poe added. "Right? And then--we wash our hands after, I guess? We're not using the refresher for the rest of the routine, but you could take a shower if you needed to."

Finn shrugged. "Hands, uh--hands is enough. Sometimes when I was younger, I would--I had permission to discharge more than once a day. Most of us did, because our hormones weren't balanced yet. So then--if it wasn't the morning routine, we would just wash our hands afterward."

"And you got in some extra time with your blaster sim that way, too, huh?" Poe asked, smiling. His voice was almost the same as when he had winked at Finn yesterday. 

Finn smiled and shrugged. "I mean, it came in handy sometimes..."

" _Handy_ ," Poe said under his breath, his voice going uneven as if _he_ were just a cadet whose hormones weren't under control. "Yeah, okay. We can do that, Finn. Later tonight? After supper?"

Finn nodded eagerly. "After supper. Thanks, Poe!"

"No problem, buddy," Poe said, smiling. 

He still looked tired; he really ought to sleep more. Well, discharge wouldn't take long, and then Finn could tell him to get some rest. He would already be practically in bed; that would be handy.

* * *

Poe was doing his day of mandatory downtime between courier missions, so he didn't actually have any assigned tasks to occupy him between lunch and supper. Luckily, there was never a shortage of work for willing hands around the base. His security clearance promptly won him a spot helping to triage the messages flooding in for General Organa from all over the surviving worlds of the New Republic.

Poe had a knack for sizing people up. He'd known he could trust Finn practically the second he took his helmet off, and that had turned out--

No, he wasn't thinking about Finn right now. 

He was working. He watched snippets of holo messages one after another, sorting them by level of urgency and trustworthiness of the sender. It was just like the secret missions the general had sent him on from time to time, except dozens in a row, a minute or two each.

After a couple of hours of that he felt nearly as exhausted as if he'd been flying tight maneuvers the whole time. Everyone sending a message was desperate, even the liars. It wore on him, reminding him of everything and everyone he'd lost in the last few weeks. 

The admiral caught Poe rubbing his eyes and bodily pulled him away from his console. "You're on rest rotation, Dameron. Go outside. _Stop working_."

Poe was just trying to think of a good way to say _this is still more restful than worrying about having a date tonight (with someone who doesn't know it's a date) to have sex (that he doesn't know is sex)_ , when Finn himself rushed in.

He grinned at the sight of Poe. "Hey! Can I borrow you for a minute?"

Poe glanced back at the admiral, who smiled slightly and gave Poe a little push in Finn's direction. Poe surrendered to the inevitable.

It wasn't until they were outside, heading down a path into the woods Poe had never actually traveled, that it occurred to him to ask. "Where are we going?"

Finn stopped, looking around the trees without meeting Poe's eyes. "Well, I'm not sure, that's why I brought you. Mina sent me out to gather Force berries."

Poe suppressed a wince, and wondered how he was going to explain it to Finn. "Oh. Well..."

"So I figure what we do is, we find the most poisonous thing that grows around here that won't kill us just by touching it," Finn went on, still looking around. "And then I can bring back a big armful and say, look! I found the Force berries! And they looked so tasty I ate a pound of 'em on my way back."

Poe was startled into an undiplomatic laugh, and Finn finally met his eyes, grinning. "Come on, man! You think we didn't have _pranks_?" 

Poe shook his head, still laughing, full of so much pride and warmth and wanting--full of all the things he'd been trying so hard not to think about the last few hours. He couldn't hold it back anymore. He put both hands on Finn's shoulders and pressed a clumsy, hasty kiss to Finn's smiling mouth.

Finn went still under Poe's hands and lips, and Poe made himself be still too. He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking, _Well, you had to tell him, you had to find out whether he wanted this._

But in that second while Poe was bracing himself to face the consequences, Finn's hands pressed against his sides, hot over his ribs and clinging tight. Finn's lips pushed back against his, returning the kiss even more clumsily than Poe had started it. Poe's heart was racing so frantically he had to pull back and look.

Finn was looking at him with something like wonder shining in his eyes. He didn't look confused at all, and Poe's mouth hung open, wondering if somehow it could be easy. Maybe this was something Finn _did_ know, just like he knew what it meant when someone sent you off on a made-up errand. 

"That was--that was kissing, right?" Finn said. "I mean. Wow, that was a good kiss, Poe, I liked that. We should do that again. You wanna do that again?"

Yeah, Poe was not out of the woods yet. 

He glanced around at the literal woods they were in. D'Qar's forests weren't all that different from what he'd grown up with on Yavin--green leaves, trees--so he had an idea of what to look for to come up with something poisonous, and what to avoid in the meantime. He could see a promising pattern of light and shade off to the north of the path. Refuge, privacy, and something better: a good high place.

"Hey," Poe said. "Come on, let's find a good tree."

Finn frowned, his delight fading into uncertainty. Poe squeezed his shoulders and gave him a quick kiss. "Yeah, I want to do that again. But I want to climb a tree with you, too. How are you at tree-climbing?"

"I can climb," Finn said immediately, and he caught Poe's hand as Poe turned off the path. 

Poe squeezed his hand and shot him a smile, holding on as he led Finn toward the clearing he'd spotted. 

"There's this tree back home, where I grew up," Poe said. 

He'd gotten pretty good at talking about the tree without sounding completely weird about it; it was reassuring to know that, for once, if he missed the mark the person he was talking to probably wouldn't notice. "It's my favorite place in the galaxy. Getting up high like that--it's like you're just about to take off, that last moment when you've still got ground under you but you can feel the lift--"

His heart jumped at the sight of a tree at the far edge of the clearing: it was perfect, with a thick gnarled trunk and sturdy spreading limbs that stretched over the little river. He felt an echo of the same calm joy he felt every time he went home to the tree behind his father's house. That was safe, at least. He'd had a message from his dad days ago, assuring him that everyone on Yavin 4 was all right. Including the tree out back of the house.

Poe looked over at Finn, who was looking back and forth from Poe to the tree.

Okay, possibly Poe had been weird enough that Finn noticed, but...

"At important times in my life," Poe said. "If I'm not in a cockpit, I want to be near a tree. And this is... this is important to me, Finn."

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Finn struck out toward the tree, hauling Poe along by the hand. They wound up running to it together, swarming up it like kids and meeting again in the branches. Finn kissed Poe while he was still belly-down on a limb, and Poe surged into it, kissing back while he threw a leg over to steady himself.

"So I..." Poe pulled back, putting his hands on Finn's shoulders to stave off more kisses. "Finn, I've been wanting to do that for a while, but not just kissing. I want--I like you so much, and I want--" 

He wanted everything, a lot of things, and he faltered over the words of negotiation.

"Boyfriend?" Finn tried. "I mean, be my boyfriend? I could be yours? Like that?"

Poe raked a hand through his hair and laughed helplessly. It wasn't a word he'd applied to any of his relationships in about fifteen years, but it would work. "Yeah. That's what I want. Is that--have you had boyfriends before?"

Finn shook his head sharply. "Boyfriends are a civilian thing, right? Like families. I mean, a Republic--a not-First-Order thing. Boyfriends--or, or girlfriends--they kiss and touch and make irrational decisions about each other."

Poe opened his mouth but no sound came out; he felt like he'd just had the breath knocked out of him.

"I mean, we--we kind of started right there--not the kissing! But the irrational decisions, right?" Finn said. "That's--that's why they taught us about civilians and all the ways they connect with each other, because when people have connections like that, sometimes it can be used against them, but mostly you have to watch out, because people can be reckless if someone they care about is in danger. They do things they didn't know they could do. Things they _couldn't_ do, any other way."

Poe felt the same surge of warmth he had down on the path, because Finn _did_ understand this, or at least the essentials of it. That was love he was talking about, even if Finn only had a Stormtrooper's words for it. He'd learn the rest as they went along, as long as that was what he wanted. "Yeah. Yeah, that's... That's us, Finn."

Finn grinned, then frowned and licked his lips, looking down. "Is it only--if you have a boyfriend, is that--I mean, now that _you're_ my boyfriend, should I not--"

Poe caught his hand and squeezed again. "You feel like that about Rey too, don't you?"

Finn nodded, looking up with a tentative smile, and Poe grinned. "Good! I thought so. Glad I wasn't reading you wrong. We'll work out how to share, okay? When she gets back, we'll talk--all three of us together. Maybe, um..." 

Poe tried to imagine Finn and Rey navigating this conversation alone. "Maybe don't go too far in talking with her about it until I'm there, okay? I want to be there. I don't know what she's used to from Jakku, but I bet we can make it work."

"I know she doesn't mind holding hands," Finn offered. "Not really. Or hugging. Do you think all three of us..."

"Maybe, or maybe it's you and me and then you and her," Poe said. He wasn't even going to make guesses about where Rey's interests lay; that was advanced three-dimensional relationship navigation and he and Finn were still somewhere around getting a two-wheeler down a trail without crashing. "Like I said, we can't decide anything for her, okay? We have to wait until she's back. But in the meantime..."

Poe pulled Finn into a slower kiss, carefully controlled, and Finn relaxed into it, parting his lips and letting Poe lead. Poe could almost feel him working out the best vectors of approach, the right pressure to use. He let himself sink into it, the caress of Finn's mouth and the warmth of his body, the safe quiet of the forest around them.

Finn pulled away just when they seemed to be getting somewhere, not just breaking the kiss but angling his body out of contact with Poe's. His fast breathing turned measured, his shoulders stiff.

Poe closed his eyes. Because Finn had been trained to think of getting turned on as an urgent need to use the refresher, plus overtones of being stared at by Snoke or hearing the First Order gloat about their atrocities. Of course he didn't want to keep going after he started to respond. Poe would scare him right out of this tree if he tried to push it. He wasn't going to push, not until Finn wanted to try going down that path. There was no rush. 

Poe leaned against the trunk of the tree, the bark cool and rough against his cheek, and reminded himself. There was no rush.

"Do you still," Finn said, not looking at him. "Is it--if we're boyfriends, can we still be cohort-mates, too? Or is that..."

Cohort-mates, as in _people who jerk off next to each other while playing a flight sim_. 

Poe straightened up and rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, Finn, we can. That's actually kind of--for a lot of people, at least where I come from, that usually goes together. It's one of the ways people like to be close to someone they care about, sharing that. That's why I wanted to do it with you, because I like you that way."

Finn was slowly turning toward him the whole time Poe spoke, and his wary look dissolved into relief, if not excitement. Poe was equally relieved. He had threaded that needle well enough not to sound like some kind of terrifying fetishist by Stormtrooper standards. 

"Do you think Rey... no, I know, we have to wait until she's back and ask her."

"You got it, buddy," Poe said. He wanted to reach out, try for another kiss, but Finn was still holding himself stiffly, keeping a little distance. "Now come on, I bet we can find something toxic along the riverbank here."

Finn gave a huge, bright smile, and he was halfway down the tree before Poe made himself move from that spot.

* * *

Finn forced himself to eat his full portions at supper that night, pushing away the thought of what would happen after, or what had happened that afternoon. Both were equally hard--difficult-- _hard_ \--to ignore, since he was sitting across from Poe again.

Poe kept smiling, and his lips looked redder than usual, his dark eyes brighter. He winked _twice_ , and the second time Finn made a helpless, uncontrollable noise while he was choking back the question about what it meant. Poe smiled with all his teeth and his foot nudged against Finn's under the table. 

Finn wanted to kiss him, touch him. He wanted so many things he could hardly hold them all in his head.

But discharge first, because it had obviously been much too long. He'd gotten the urge while he was kissing Poe. It hadn't progressed as far as getting hard, but that tingly warning sensation had turned his stomach, and he'd had to pull away before it got any worse.

At least if his body was that badly in need of discharge he shouldn't have any trouble getting the job done quickly, despite the strange circumstances. If they were quick, he could have a little more time with Poe after. Finn could help him clear the tarp away, maybe, and find out if that colorful blanket was as soft and warm as it looked...

"Finn?" 

Finn focused on Poe, who had gathered up his tray and cup and was obviously ready to stand up and leave. Finn looked down and realized that he'd finished his own meal without noticing. His stomach clenched around it. After supper. Now it was time. 

Finn gathered his own things and stood up, following Poe out of the mess for the second time that day.

Back in Poe's quarters, there was already a silvery-gray tarp spread over the bed. Finn recognized it from the hangar where pilots and techs worked on the X-wings; they would cover damaged hull sections with tarps like this, or spread out parts on them. It made sense that a pilot like Poe would choose something like this for his biological maintenance activities too.

"So, uh..." Poe had one hand in his hair, ruffling it uncertainly as he stood by the bunk. "I'm guessing when you do the morning routine, you take all your clothes off? But other times..."

Finn felt a brief, disorienting surge of interest at the thought of seeing Poe with his clothes off, maybe even touching skin to skin. They could hug like that, lie down together so close and so warm...

But no. Discharge first.

"Yeah, um, other times I just unfasten enough to reach?" Finn offered. Discharge didn't have to be a big thing, just a few minutes, a quick wash of hands, and then maybe they could do other stuff. Boyfriend stuff.

Poe nodded quickly and gestured to the bunk. "Pick your spot, then."

Finn considered. Poe had said he liked to have both hands free, the same as Finn, so they should both have elbow room on both sides. Finn sat down on the bunk, nearer the door, leaving half an arm's length between his left side and the end of the bunk. He could see Poe mentally dividing up the space and coming to the same conclusion; he sat down half an arm's length from the other end.

"Okay, so I thought this one would be good," Poe said, touching something to activate a holo projection. Finn thought briefly of BB-8 and was suddenly glad that the little droid wasn't present to witness this, even though he was used to being monitored from practically every angle. There had never been any danger of a First Order monitoring system giving him a thumbs up for his performance--or withholding one and chirping incomprehensibly instead. 

"We each do our own run through the sim," Poe explained, bringing up the menus. "So you can have whatever difficulty and speed settings you want."

Finn locked his gaze on the center of the left-side projection, and it flashed to indicate that he had eye control now. He flicked quickly through menus, setting his own preferences while he unfastened his pants. In his peripheral vision he could see Poe setting up his own sim run, and he could hear the little sounds of Poe's hands, opening his clothes and getting ready. 

He could also feel it: every motion Poe made rustled the tarp and shifted the mattress. Finn felt the vibrations carry through, so he couldn't help being aware of exactly what Poe was doing. 

Finn focused all the more intently on his own sim, starting up the run as he closed his hand around his penis, already getting firm and thick. The tingly too-much feelings were already starting, and he knew this was going to be intense; it always was after even a day or two skipped. Finn gritted his teeth and focused on the sim, guiding his ship through the beginner's asteroid field as his hands moved in the familiar patterns and rhythms. 

He was jostled slightly by Poe doing the same beside him, the mattress bouncing a little. Finn hit an asteroid, and the burst of flame was accompanied not only by a warning chirp from the sim but a little _ha_ from Poe. 

Finn dared to glance at Poe's sim, gracefully swooping through a much more complicated field. Well, if Poe could throw him off, Finn could do the same. He spread his legs wider on the bunk, exaggerating his motions and bouncing harder on purpose. Poe cursed softly under his breath--Finn saw light flare on his side of the sim--and Finn grinned and focused on his own path, moving his hands and hips faster as the sensations built toward the inevitable end.

His own ship crashed, and Finn hurried to restart before he could lose the rhythm and focus required. He bit down on his lip, hands moving fast now, almost an edge of pain as the feeling built low in his belly.

And then relief, at last, the final sensation of discharge flashing brightly through him as semen pulsed out. Finn adjusted the angle of his penis, making sure it all landed neatly on the tarp between his legs. He did not neglect to follow through, continuing the brisk motions until discharge was absolutely complete, and then three more slightly painful repetitions, just to be sure. 

His ship had crashed again; in his peripheral vision he saw that Poe's was still flying, though redline warnings flashed in every corner of the display. Poe was still moving his hands, his breathing ragged.

Finn hesitated, his curled hands hanging between his thighs. He wanted to get up, wash, get rid of the mess, but Poe was still using the tarp, and moving would draw attention to the disparity of their performances. Finn had often dawdled at the flusher after he finished, not wanting to make it obvious that he had been quickest of all his team by such a wide margin. He could wait with Poe, too.

Finn started another round of the sim, not letting his eyes stray to Poe's exceptionally poor performance. He had distracted Poe too much, obviously. He hadn't meant to be cruel, only playful, joining in the joke, but maybe he'd gone too far. Poe let out a breath that sounded almost pained, and Finn winced. 

What if Poe didn't want to discharge with him anymore? He shouldn't have--

"Finn?" 

Poe definitely sounded like he was in pain, breathless and a little desperate.

"Yeah," Finn said immediately, even though it was weird as hell to talk during discharge. He hoped Poe wasn't going to fail entirely, but his hands were still moving and his ship was still flying. Poe hadn't given up yet, and Finn was already finished, so Poe wasn't throwing him off.

"Could you," Poe's voice was really unsteady now. "Could you just--talk? So I know you're there?"

Finn thought of Poe feeling alone. Instantly he thought of Poe strapped to the interrogation frame, all alone, thinking he would never see his friends again. He thought of Poe thrown clear of the TIE fighter, lost by himself in the desert on Jakku without even a jacket.

"Yeah," Finn said. "Hey, Poe, I'm right here seeing you lose at this flight sim--"

A flash of light went over the screen on Poe's side of the sim as Finn spoke, a final crash. The menu screen dimmed, like Poe had his eyes closed, but Poe's hands kept moving audibly. 

Finn had to keep talking, so Poe would know he wasn't alone. Why didn't he already have a team for this? Hadn't anyone from his squadron known to invite him, to be sure he wasn't alone?

"You're not alone, I'm here," Finn said firmly. "I'm here--I'm not going anywhere. I'm your boyfriend now, and I'll be with you whenever you need--"

Poe's breath hitched in what sounded like pain, but Finn caught the sound of his hands moving faster, and a liquid patter against the tarp. 

"Okay?" Finn said after a few seconds.

Poe gave a ragged little laugh. "Yeah, Finn. Thanks."

* * *

Poe kept his eyes closed as he came down from an orgasm that had been way better than it had any right to be. He hadn't so much as touched Finn, hadn't even looked at him. The only thing that made it different from jerking off alone was Finn's earnestly encouraging voice and the hope it gave him that this might not be the best they could ever do. 

His whole body felt warm and loose, with a greedy let's-go-again tingle inspired by that thought, but--no. _Ever_ was not _today_. He knew well enough to know that sometimes you had to declare victory and stop fighting, leave the next objective for another day. 

"Right," Poe said, opening his eyes. Finn was still sitting beside him, and Poe dared to steal a sideways glance. Finn's pants were still undone, revealing a dark triangle of lower abdomen, but he'd tucked his dick away already. His hands now rested on his thighs, turned up and fingers curled in, awaiting washing.

"Come on, let's get washed up," Poe said. "The bed's comfier without this tarp on it, and when I was setting up the flight sim I ran across a holo I want to show you. I mean, if you don't mind staying a little while?"

"Oh!" Finn sat up straight, and Poe figured it was safe to look directly at him. 

_Safe_ was maybe the wrong word for the eager brightness of Finn's eyes, but Finn looked back at him without any sign of suspecting that Poe was engaging in an alarming sexual eccentricity. 

"Yeah, I could stay, I'd like that," Finn said quickly. "I haven't seen a lot of Resistance holos, is it--does it have..." 

Finn trailed off. 

"Boyfriends?" Poe asked with a smile. He stood up, and Finn immediately stood up with him. They crowded into Poe's little cubicle of a refresher together to wash their hands and get their clothes in order. 

Finn gave him a hopeful look in the mirror and Poe grinned, trying not to notice how red-cheeked he was, studying Finn's face under the brighter light instead. He thought there might be a trace of a hot flush on the tops of his ears; it would take some practice to be able to see Finn blush, but Poe was willing to put in the time. 

"Yeah, there are boyfriends," Poe said. "And one of them has a girlfriend too, how about that?"

There had been kind of a lot of holos structured that way, in the years since the Battle of Endor; Poe had been ten when one of his classmates told him it was because of General Solo and General Organa and Commander Skywalker. They'd all shared the same fascinated horror at the idea, and then it just became commonplace knowledge. The holos weren't actually _about_ the heroes of the Rebellion, after all, and none of them were secretly brother and sister in the stories. 

Well, hardly ever.

Finn checked his pants for stray spots of come with no sign of self-consciousness, so Poe did the same. Not something he'd had to worry about it a long damn time, but he seemed to have managed it.

He led Finn back out into his room, and Finn showed no squeamishness about helping him bundle up the tarp, and made no objection to Poe setting it aside to be cleaned later. When they settled down on the bunk together again, Finn sat closer, and Poe felt like a kid again, slipping his arm cautiously around Finn's shoulders as he cued up the holo with his other hand.

It was set on old Alderaan, with everybody in five layers of clothing and using their most exquisite manners. There were a few kisses, but hardly even any implications of sex. Poe figured holos like this would be a gentle way to ease Finn into the whole concept of how romantic relationships actually worked, giving him some of the same models to work from that Poe had had when he was a kid. 

Finn cuddled into him readily, slipping one arm around Poe in return, and Poe smiled. They just needed time to figure things out. Finn was a fast learner; in a few weeks he'd probably have the hang of everything.

* * *

Early the next morning, an hour before his duty shift technically started, BB-8 woke Poe up to tell him the General wanted him. 

_She's going to brief you for a mission_ , BB-8 helpfully informed him. _Flying escort for Rey and Master Luke. They're coming home today._


	2. Chapter 2

When Chewbacca sent her out of the cockpit for her rest shift, Rey went back to sit by Luke, who spent much of his time either meditating or sleeping while sitting very straight. The long flight back along a familiar course had left her a lot of time to think about things she had mostly put off thinking about while they were searching, and during the three days Luke had spent pretending that he might keep Rey on his island for years to train her. 

But now they were going back to D'Qar and the Resistance. That meant Rey was going back to Finn. And Poe Dameron. 

"Generally speaking, I like to let you figure things out on your own as much as you like doing it," Luke said without moving or opening his eyes. "But I can feel you going in circles, so this seems like a good time to point out that it does make me feel useful when you ask questions."

Rey smiled and closed her own eyes, straightening her back and composing her thoughts, trying to distill all the snarled logic paths of her thoughts down to one question she could ask her new teacher. She didn't open her mouth until she had identified one specific nexus of uncertainty that might help untangle the rest.

"Are we allowed to have sex?"

She felt a wash of surprise and horror, quickly suppressed, that made her eyes flash open. She looked over to find Luke looking back, and realized what he'd heard.

"No, not--not _with each other!_ "

Luke's good-humored calm reappeared almost as quickly as it had disappeared, and he gave her a nod that was almost a bow. "I apologize for my misunderstanding. You mean--are Jedi allowed?"

Rey nodded, accepting unspoken that Luke was using _Jedi_ as a shorter form of his six-paragraph disclaimer about whether he, let alone Rey as his student, could even be considered to be a member of the old Order. 

Luke blew out a breath. "It was one of the first of the old rules that I threw out, when I took my own apprentices--it seemed so needlessly repressive. My sister and I wouldn't exist if it had been universally obeyed; then again my father's career as a Jedi is not one I wish to hold up as an example. These years I've spent searching, I've been trying to get back to the first principles of the Order, to find the reasons behind the rules that were thousands of years old by the time they reached Obi-Wan and my father and me."

Rey nodded to show she was listening, hoping against hope that this was the warmup before an actual answer.

"I was told that for the Jedi, attachments are forbidden," Luke went on. "And yet the Force flows through everything, connects everything; we are not outside the Force just because we're sensitive to it and can manipulate it. It does mean that we have to be very aware of what we put into the Force--fear, anger, hatred, these are dangerous emotions to be guided by when the power of the Force responds to us. And yet I was trained so that I could join in the Rebellion, and any revolution must be fundamentally motivated by anger. Not reckless anger, not personal anger, but--"

Rey started counting her breaths and paying careful attention to her posture. She'd just barely gotten into a meditative rhythm before Luke stopped talking in the middle of a diversionary argument branching off one of his points. 

"Sorry, that's all a little more theoretical than you probably care about if you've been driven to ask me."

Rey smiled tentatively. "I'm sure the theory is important too?"

Luke shook his head. "Honestly, it's mostly moot when it comes to you. Even more than I was when I began to train, you're an adult. You've lived on your own for years, you haven't had to put up with anyone ordering you around; for the most part you've already become the person you're going to be. If I told you no, it's absolutely forbidden, all I'd do is destroy any hope that you would trust me or come to me if you ran into some kind of difficulty in the course of doing exactly what you think is best. If my experiences of teaching have taught me nothing else, at least I've learned better than to do that."

_Again_ , he didn't say. Rey let the implicit comparisons flow past her.

"So let me ask you, instead." Luke leaned back against a bulkhead, taking up a deliberately casual pose that made her remember the General's quietly fond reminiscence of the brother she'd first met when she was Rey's age. "Who have you got your eye on, and why are you bothering to ask an old hermit for advice about what to do next?"

That dropped Rey right back into the knot of uncertainty she'd been avoiding untangling for weeks now. 

"Finn, I think?" She'd already told Luke enough about Finn that he didn't need any explanation of who she was talking about, and he probably had a good idea of how much Finn meant to Rey. 

"I think I'd--I think _he'd_ like to, probably. He definitely liked holding my hand, and he asked me once if I had a boyfriend, but he never made any other moves--but if he _had_ tried anything I probably would have broken his arm on reflex, so maybe he just wasn't being pushy? But maybe he doesn't like me like that. Or women in general? Because there's Poe, and I think... Poe knew him first, so his claim is before mine anyway. And I left to find you, which was important, of course, but Poe's the one who's been there, so he'll be in way ahead of me. I _know_ Poe's thinking of him like that. Poe said so, but..."

But that wasn't all Poe had said when they were standing by Finn's bed, waiting for him to wake up. She couldn't quite credit what she thought he had been saying. He'd been speaking Standard, but Rey still felt as if her translation might be off, as if the simple-sounding words he was using were all secretly doubling as incomprehensible Resistance slang.

"Poe is Poe _Dameron_ , right?" Luke asked, when Rey didn't start talking again. 

Of course even Luke, who'd been in exile for years, knew who Poe Dameron was. Everyone knew Poe, the General's most trusted pilot, the best of the Resistance--

"I don't think I've seen him since he was eight years old," Luke said thoughtfully. "I missed Shara's--his mother's--funeral, but I went to pay my respects afterward. She was a pilot; we ran a mission together once. We rescued two trees that had grown at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant from the Empire. One of them was that tree you liked, on the big island."

Rey caught her breath a little. It wasn't enough to say she'd _liked_ that tree. She'd camped under it, when Luke took her to the big island for a day and night. She would have slept in its branches if Luke hadn't asked her to please come down to the ground, for the sake of his peace of mind. It was so--so green all the way down, so intensely, perfectly alive and what it was.

"I gave the other one to Shara, and Poe took me to see it when I came to visit. It was his favorite place. He had slept in it, or under it, most nights since his mother died. He climbed up into it when his father told him the news, and didn't come down until he had to go to her funeral."

Something clicked into place that Rey had barely been aware of wondering. _That_ was how a person grew up to be _Poe Dameron_ , then. He had grown up in the presence of that intense greenness, that aliveness, that perfect tree-ness always close enough to touch. When he lost his mother as a child, he had that tree to comfort him. Not desert sand, but fertile soil. Not a hot breathless wind but the cool shelter of leaves.

"That was on Yavin 4," Luke added slowly, his eyes wandering as he remembered. "We had a whole base there--a lot of people from the Rebellion settled around there when the fighting was over. People from all kinds of places, one end of the galaxy to the other. Customs and traditions got mixed there, until figuring out how to fit them all together became a tradition of its own."

He focused directly on Rey, his gaze sharpening. "So I have a feeling if you talked to Poe about your feelings for Finn, his first instinct would be to find a way to accommodate everyone's wishes. If Finn returns your interest, of course." 

Rey opened and closed her mouth, trying to shift things around in her brain to make that even a little possible. You had to protect what belonged to you, you had to be sure no one could steal it, and that went double for the loyalty of a person you could trust. "But he--why would he--"

Luke raised his eyebrows. "I'll bet you can answer that question."

Rey pressed her lips together and made herself consider it.

Her objections--her fears, her rules--those were what Luke had been teaching her to understand as _Jakku thoughts_. Thoughts that came from the desert, from hunger, from being alone.

If she wanted to understand Poe, she had to think Yavin thoughts. _Tree_ thoughts. Green, alive thoughts.

_There's enough to go around_. Poe had given Finn his jacket... because Poe knew he would be able to get another jacket. Poe shared rations casually--always urging her to share some snack he'd brought to sickbay--because Poe had never gone hungry. And if he shared Finn with Rey, Poe would know perfectly well that he could still trust plenty of other people to have his back, to keep him company while Finn was otherwise occupied. 

Poe didn't have to hoard anything. Poe had never lived in a desert.

But Finn wasn't rations or a jacket, either. Finn got to make his own choices, as Luke had so succinctly pointed out to her--she didn't know if Finn wanted _her_ , so there might be nothing to fight over anyway. But if he did want her, if he wanted her and Poe both--then Poe would respect what Finn wanted. 

"Because... everyone gets to be happy that way," Rey summarized carefully. "If that's what everyone wants."

Luke nodded. "So, leaving aside all this business about whose claim comes first. Is that what you want? To be with Finn? Even if he's also with Poe?"

Rey shrugged uncertainly. That was a whole other layer to the thing. "I... I haven't, ever."

She had regarded her virginity as an accomplishment until she left Jakku behind. It meant that she had always defended herself, never misjudged a situation or got so desperate for rations or help that she had to trade herself. Never so desperate for company as to trade herself for _that_ , either. 

It was only when she was on the Resistance base, being introduced around and listening to the way people talked, letting herself think about her own future and what she might want, that she realized she'd run up against something she knew nothing about. This wasn't a language she could pick up by listening to traders in the market, wasn't something she could tinker with alone until it worked right. 

Well. She _had_ done a little tinkering of her own, but she had never gotten far with it. Back on Jakku it had felt dangerous--she had mostly only touched herself over her clothes, to keep the ever-present sand out--and when she lay in her bunk and tried to imagine the ways Finn might want to touch her, it all collapsed into worry and rough calluses on dry flesh. 

So she hadn't. Ever. Not with anyone else, and hardly with herself, and now she didn't know _how_ to go at anything with Finn. She didn't know what she wanted him to do or not to do, what she might be willing to do for him--and she definitely couldn't compete with Poe, who was a proper adult and had always been surrounded by people he could trust to try things with.

She thought for a moment, absurdly, of asking Poe for advice. Would he share that as easily as he had seemed to offer to share Finn? Would he teach her, just so that she could do those things with Finn? Could she offer herself--but no, it wasn't supposed to be that kind of exchange, not in the Resistance. Could she just... choose? Could she just decide to do any of those things with Poe? He was kind; she was sure he would be gentle. He would teach her...

If he wanted her--at least as much as she wanted him, and she couldn't imagine Poe feeling anything as tentative and confused as her awareness of his body, his hands, his smiles. Poe wanted Finn, that was all she knew for sure. He wanted Finn and he had offered to share.

She focused on Luke again; he was giving her a wryly sympathetic look. 

"It's hard being the youngest in the room, isn't it? I was nineteen, suddenly in the middle of a war, surrounded by all these heroic people. Gorgeous people. Even Leia--we might have been the same number of years old, but she had so much more experience than I did with everything."

"What did you do?" Rey curled her arms around herself, wondering if she would be in Luke's place someday, gray-haired and wise, dispensing kind advice to some apprentice. It was a better future to imagine than becoming a sun-baked toothless old woman still cleaning scrap for rations on Jakku, anyway.

"Oh, I was insufferable," Luke said, shaking his head. "I just kept throwing myself into things like I had any idea what I was doing. That might work for you, with Finn and Poe, although--"

A weird look went over Luke's face. "Have you been to the sickbay at all since you joined the Resistance?"

Rey pressed her lips together and carefully did not roll her eyes. "I got my year's dose three months ago, I won't bleed anytime soon."

Luke nodded slowly. "I was thinking, actually, that they could run a genetic profile on you--compare it to Resistance personnel in their medical databases. That way if you have any relatives among the Resistance, even distant ones..."

"Oh." Rey frowned, wondering what that mattered to this conversation. Luke had just been telling her she didn't need to worry about her bargaining position. Even if she turned out to be a long lost daughter of--of--

She looked at Luke again. 

He grimaced. "Leia and I didn't know at the beginning that we were brother and sister. It... could have been even more awkward than it was when we found out."

Rey's eyes went wide, and she covered her mouth with one hand. The General had never mentioned _that_.

"I can't imagine you'd be a child of Kes's and not have grown up with him, and you're too young to be Shara's, of course, but I don't know if either of them had siblings, and Finn doesn't know who his family is either--"

"We, we're not... I don't think..." But different features were no guarantee, not really, and Luke was right. It would be awkward. Very awkward. "I'll check."

Luke nodded firmly. "Do that. Other than that, the only thing to do is to talk to him. To both of them, ideally. It's all right not to know what you want right away. If they're worth a tenth of the thought you've put into this, they'll be willing to figure it out with you. And tell me if anything goes wrong, will you? I don't know what I can do about it, but... tell me anyway. I'll try to help."

Rey nodded quickly, her throat too tight to speak.

"We could probably both use some quiet--"

From the cockpit, Chewie called out. _We're being hailed! Resistance frequency._

Rey hurried forward immediately. The compression on ship to ship comms cut out a lot of the subtle harmonics in Wookiee speech; it would be better if she did the talking. 

So of course the voice that greeted her when she fell into the co-pilot's seat was _Poe Dameron's_. 

"--Leader here, squadron of one. We've got some remote defenses set up since you left, so I'll guide you in on the safe approach. If there's any actual attack, I'll draw fire, you run for home. Hail on this frequency when you're within a parsec, they'll talk you in."

"Understood," Rey managed. 

"Rey," Poe said, letting go of his brisk comm protocol voice. "I'm glad you're coming home. Finn's excited to see you again."

Rey closed her eyes for an instant in delight tangled with awkward gratitude. Poe hadn't had to tell her that so kindly and so quickly, but he had. _Tree thoughts._

"Did Finn say--" 

Rey cut herself off. She shouldn't have asked. She was suddenly aware of Chewbacca at her side, Luke hovering at her shoulder.

"He didn't think to give me a message for you," Poe filled in generously. "He was too busy fretting about all the things he wants to tell you when you're back. Brace to have your ears talked off."

"I can defend myself." Rey let herself smile, anticipating it. Finn, awake, wanting to talk with her. Wanting her there, even though he had Poe. "I'll talk right back."

Poe laughed a little. "I have no doubt. But--here, BB-8's going to upload a course. If you need to cut for home suddenly, I want you to have it pre-set, all right?"

"You're going to be right behind us if we do, right?" It occurred to Rey for an instant that if they lost Poe on this mission, Finn would be all hers--but the thought wasn't greedy and triumphant. It felt lonely and terrified. What would they do without Poe?

"On your heels, fast as I can," Poe promised easily. "Believe me, I don't intend to miss seeing you and Finn talk each other's ears off."

"I'll hold you to that," Rey said, fingers flying across the console as she set the course Poe and BB-8 sent. 

"Roger that," Poe agreed, and Rey was reminded that they had to finish _flying home_ first.

If Luke and Chewbacca laughed at her, at least they were quiet about it.

* * *

Poe set his X-Wing down on the tarmac with a nervous, backward sense of anticipation. He was on solid ground again, but he felt like he was only now prepping for the real takeoff--and in a craft he'd never piloted before. 

He caught sight of Finn standing at the exact edge of the safety line, waiting for him, and remembered that the last new craft he'd piloted had been that TIE fighter, with Finn at his back. That had certainly worked out well, give or take a crash and a few days wandering in a desert. He'd gained a hell of a lot more than he lost, in the long run.

Poe popped the canopy and swung himself out before BB-8 could scold him for dawdling or offer any more pithy advice. Finn was there before Poe had his feet on the ground, and Poe let himself drop right into Finn's arms. Finn hugged him like he'd been gone for days, not hours, and kissed him before Poe could get a word out--though Finn would already know the important part. Rey was right behind him. 

He broke his mouth from Finn's when he heard the whine of the Millennium Falcon's atmospheric engines. Finn flashed a huge grin at Poe and let go of him only to grab his hand, towing him to the safety line for the Falcon's landing area.

For a moment Poe forgot everything else and watched the Millennium Falcon land, marveling at the legend. 

Then the ramp came down and revealed Luke Skywalker. Poe reeled back slightly from that sudden presence--he hadn't seen Luke since he was a child, shortly after his mother's funeral. On Yavin, when he was so young, maybe it hadn't been obvious to him that being in Skywalker's presence was like suddenly finding himself in the center of a deep, green forest.

Then the sensation eased, and he realized that it wasn't just being in Skywalker's presence--it was having Skywalker's attention. He was looking at Finn now, and Finn's hand was clamped tight on Poe's, but he looked hopeful and delighted.

Poe looked back to Skywalker just in time to receive a half-smile and a nod, and then Skywalker headed quickly down the ramp with R2-D2 on his heels, herding him toward a knot of people headed by the General. Poe hadn't even noticed her there. 

He didn't have time to think much of that, though, because Rey appeared next with Chewbacca at her side. Having _Rey's_ attention felt like--like he really, really wanted a pre-flight checklist and there just wasn't one to be had. 

Finn dragged Poe forward a few running steps, and Rey's smile became a big grinning laugh as she hurried to meet them. Finn let go of Poe's hand as he took the last few strides to meet Rey, and Finn swung her around in a hug while she cried out, "You look so--oof, Finn, are you sure--"

"I'm fine, I'm one hundred percent!" Finn insisted, setting her on her feet--and he'd swung her around just far enough that he was putting her down exactly between him and Poe. 

Rey noticed it too, looking toward him immediately. Poe realized that he had his hands clasped tightly behind his back at the same time that his almost-dignified nod of greeting turned into something like a half-bow.

BB-8 let out a frustrated series of chirps behind him, drawing Rey's eye down and putting a baffled smile on her face.

Finn threw his hands up. "This isn't Count Borano's drawing room, Poe!" 

Poe took a step in, bringing his hands around to offer to Rey, as he frowned at Finn. "How many episodes did you--wait, the ball at Count Borano's is in episode _eight_."

Finn looked sheepish and shoved Rey toward Poe by the shoulder; she'd twisted to look at him, and was off balance enough to sway toward him. Poe caught her in a hug before Finn and BB-8 teamed up to cause even more havoc trying to provoke them. 

Rey leaned into it, a little to Poe's surprise, and she said in his ear, "I met the twin to your tree."

Poe choked on the _welcome home_ he'd meant to offer her, pulling back to look her in the eye, though he couldn't doubt what she meant. 

"Luke took me to camp on the island where it lives," Rey explained, keeping her hands on his arms while his were still loosely curled around her back. "He didn't tell me what it was until after, but I had to climb it, as soon as I saw it. I slept under it that night."

Rey was Force-sensitive, nearly a Jedi; he didn't know what the tree--or its twin--felt like to her, but he knew it couldn't be so much different from the way it felt to him, only more. He was grinning, feeling homesick and welcomed home all at once, as if he had picked up the scent of it from her, as if the feeling of it had come with her. He hugged her again, on purpose this time. Rey laughed and let herself be swung around without objection this time, only holding out a hand in Finn's direction.

Finn needed no more encouragement to pile on, wrapping his arms around both of them. Poe knew that whether they knew what they were doing or not, they were going to soar.

* * *

"Speaking of trees," Finn said, because apparently talking about trees like that wasn't just a funny Poe thing but a civilian thing--did everyone have a special tree? And if so, could he claim the one here on D'Qar that he and Poe had climbed together? "We should talk, all three of us. It's not dark yet, we could go look for berries again."

Poe tugged away and said, "Rey probably--" at the same time Rey closed her hand on Finn's sleeve and said, "Yes, we--" and they stumbled to a stop, looking at each other.

Poe shook his head slightly, smiling. "I mean, you've only just put down--"

"So did you!" Rey said quickly, "you've been in an X-Wing all day, I was only co-piloting--"

"I brought snacks," Finn broke in before this could turn into Count Borano's drawing room all over again. Poe and Rey both turned toward him, and Finn gestured toward the pack he'd assembled when he realized they would be getting in before dark. 

"It's not a long walk, and you probably both need to stretch your legs anyway," Finn pointed out. "And there are trees. You both like trees. If we're going to talk--we should pick out a tree for that, right?"

"Yes," Rey said immediately. "We should definitely be near a tree when we talk."

Poe looked back and forth between Finn and Rey for a moment, then shrugged and nodded. "You should pick the tree, Rey--you'll know which one is the best one, won't you?"

Rey looked taken aback at that--obviously the whole tree thing was complicated, and it wasn't like she'd grown up around them. But it was only a second, and then Rey nodded firmly. "Yes. Yes, I can do that."

It felt like she was already saying yes to the whole thing, and Finn had to hug her again, just for a second, before he hurried off to pick up the pack.

* * *

Rey closed her eyes as she followed Finn in among the trees, her hand held tight in his. The greenness all around her--the intense Force-saturated aliveness--was like food after days of hunger. She hadn't realized how she'd missed it while in space, with only the bright sparks of Luke and Chewbacca housing the Force amid the cold vast emptiness. 

After a moment Finn stopped walking. Poe, trailing after them, stopped at arm's length behind her. The forest couldn't drown out the brightness of the Force dwelling in the two of them, the particularly complex patterns of it flowing through sentient beings. 

Finn squeezed her hand. "So, Rey. See any trees you like?"

Rey frowned, focusing on the shapes the Force took as it flowed through the slow, solid lives of trees. She was distracted for a moment by the change in the dazzling patterns of Poe and Finn--they must be looking at each other, gesturing or silently communicating--but they didn't speak, and she was able to reach out into the greenness, searching for the densest, brightest place.

"There," she said after a moment, opening her eyes. The tree wasn't far, in a clearing almost directly north of the spot they stood on the trail.

"Ha!" Finn jumped in triumph, grabbing her in another hug. "I knew it! I knew! That one's _mine_ , you've each got one already."

Rey looked toward Poe, who shrugged and smiled. "Finn and I had a tree talk yesterday. I picked that one too."

"Oh." Rey smiled hesitantly back at him. "So we're agreed, then."

Poe's smile widened, and Finn made an impatient noise and tugged her off the path toward the--his--tree. 

Rey kept her eyes ahead, but she reached her hand back toward Poe. She felt a little thrill when he took it, her smile widening unseen. _Tree thoughts. Green thoughts. There's plenty for everyone._

She thought it might not be so hard to remember here, like this.

The tree up ahead didn't have the overwhelming presence of the Jedi tree she'd known, but she could feel an echo of it in the thick gnarled trunk and green spreading branches. 

"Do we actually climb it?" Rey asked as they approached, studying the branches and trying to work out where all three of them could perch close to each other. 

"Maybe simpler to stay on the ground, with three," Poe said quickly, obviously picturing the same spatial difficulty Rey was seeing. "We can just sit under it here." 

Finn prodded Rey into a grassy spot between two roots, where she could lean back against the tree's trunk. Finn himself sat facing her, and Poe sat facing both of them, to Rey's right. 

Finn fidgeted a little with the pack he'd brought. "Does anybody want--"

"Finn!" Rey said. "Now who's in the drawing room? We're here to talk, aren't we?"

Finn nodded, glancing over at Poe again, and Poe made a little encouraging motion. Finn took a deep breath and looked Rey directly in the eye, leaning forward a little and offering his hand.

"I'd like you to be my girlfriend," Finn said solemnly. "Poe's already my boyfriend, but he said we should talk all together and find a way to make it work."

Rey looked toward Poe, but he made the same little encouraging gesture at her, waving her back toward Finn. Rey wrinkled her nose at his unhelpfulness, but she put her hand in Finn's and smiled easily, honestly. "I'd like that."

Finn's smile was huge, and they both looked toward Poe together. 

"What's that make us?" Rey asked.

"Whatever we want to be," Poe said cheerfully, leaning back on his hands. "Friends, I hope, to start with. Maybe more, as we get to know each other better?"

Rey nodded cautiously. That sounded... reasonable. 

"Finn and I just started this yesterday," Poe added. "Stuff like who shares quarters with who hasn't come up yet--we're still just holding hands and kissing and making irrational decisions about each other."

Rey blinked, considering that as a definition. Kissing, holding hands, she could do those things. Maybe Finn hadn't done much more than she had; maybe they would all go slowly and she and Finn could figure it out together, with Poe guiding both of them. "Well... yes, I think that sounds all right, then."

"And I hope you'll be our teammate, too," Finn said, squeezing her hand to draw her attention back. 

Rey grinned. "Well, of course. Any mission I'm sent on--"

Poe was a sudden frantic motion in the Force, while his body barely moved in her peripheral vision. Finn's hopeful look faltered into uncertainty, and he looked over at Poe.

"Finn means here on base, in our quarters. We could do private stuff together, just the three of us as a little team. Or just me and Finn, if you don't want to. That's fine."

Rey licked her lips and tried to make sense of that; Poe had said _holding hands_ and _kissing_ , and Finn wasn't looking at her like he was going to push for something else. He looked hopeful, but not hungry.

Even when he'd said he wanted her to be his girlfriend, his gaze had never dropped from her eyes to the rest of her body. She couldn't remember that he'd _ever_ looked at her like that, actually. 

But if they weren't talking about sex, then what?

"Private stuff," Rey repeated carefully.

Finn shot Poe a look. "We're alone, nobody's going to overhear. He means, discharge. Masturbating." He gestured helpfully as he spoke.

Rey's mouth opened and closed. She looked over at Poe. 

The agitation of the Force in him stilled, and his eyes locked on hers intently. 

"You know," Poe said, and she almost _did_ know; he was trying so hard to make her. "We all just sit on the bed together and do our own things next to each other, so it's not so lonely."

"It doesn't have to be on the bed," Finn added. "That's what Poe likes, but we can do it the way you like. Or maybe take turns doing it different ways?"

"I..." Rey opened and closed her mouth a couple more times. "I had a hammock."

Finn's eyes narrowed, like he was trying to figure out how to make _that_ work. Rey couldn't help picturing it herself; a hammock would be far worse than tree branches, with three people involved.

Poe scooted close enough to touch his knee to hers and said, "Hammocks are for one, Finn. Rey's probably used to doing things alone. Which is why I said _private_."

"Oh!" Finn's eyes widened. "Um. Oh, of course. You didn't have a team at all, or anyone, on Jakku. But... wasn't it lonely?"

Rey's hand tightened on his, and for a moment she couldn't speak, only nodded quickly. It had been lonely beyond the scope of words; the only thing that made the loneliness bearable was telling herself that she was waiting for something better. 

And now she'd found it, or so she'd thought. She had been looking forward to not being lonely anymore, not having to figure this out alone. If she could figure it out with Poe and Finn doing the same thing, that had to be better, didn't it?

"It's not weird," Finn promised her.

She was aware of Poe holding very still in her peripheral vision, assuring her in every line of his body that it was _extremely weird_ , but Poe didn't want Finn to know that. So at least she hadn't been utterly wrong about how these things normally worked. 

"We won't look at you or touch you or anything, and there are sims to watch," Finn went on. 

Rey carefully did not look over at Poe. His knee pressed firmly against hers. 

"And you'd be welcome to stay for the part after where we cuddle and watch holos," Poe added smoothly. "The messy part is just taking care of business for a few minutes at the start. I mean, I'm going to have to find a new holo to watch, because Finn skipped ahead without us, but we can work something out."

A few minutes? She could hardly get ready to _start_ in just a few minutes--she'd need to wash her hands carefully and file down her nails and try to make herself feel right, knowing they would be right next to her, not-watching. All she felt now was baffled and anxious and desert-dry. 

She leaned back against the tree behind her, letting it remind her to think green thoughts, soft _wet_ thoughts. It wasn't helping nearly enough right now. 

Finn was giving her an anxious look, his hand still firmly holding hers. "You don't have to! If it's too weird to have people around, I get it. Maybe you could join us for the cuddling and holos after."

"No, I," Rey swallowed hard. "I want to. I do want to. I will. I just... I was looking forward to the kissing part."

Finn's face lit up in a wide grin, and _now_ his gaze dropped a little. Just as far as her mouth. It was like this was an entirely different topic, to Finn. "Me too! I didn't mean to make a big deal out of having you on our team--I mean, I'm glad you're going to!--but I--I really want to kiss you."

He squeezed her hand tighter in his, and Rey was smiling back without trying now. "I really want to kiss you too."

Poe scooted backward slightly, drawing both their gazes. "No, no!" He raised his hands, waving them off. "Sorry, no, you two should--I could go, or--"

"No," Rey said, realizing as she did that she was speaking in chorus with Finn. She stopped and looked at him, grinning helplessly, and he grinned back until she realized that Poe was holding perfectly still this time, trying not to distract them from each other. 

She looked back at him and said, "Please, if you don't mind--I don't know if it would be strange for you to see Finn kiss someone else, but--" 

She tried to push the thought _please don't leave me alone with him to mess this up when I still don't know what I'm doing with him and his ideas about it are weird_ without either contorting her face or literally pushing the thought into his brain. Luke said she was still not very good at modulating volume when she did that, and the last thing she wanted to do now was drive Poe off with a sudden migraine.

Poe nodded slightly. "I can stay. It's fine, I don't mind at all."

Rey looked back to Finn, only to find him frowning. His grip on her hand gentled, and he rubbed his thumb lightly over her knuckles. "Would it be strange for you to see me kiss Poe?"

Rey shrugged helplessly. "Maybe? I don't know. On Jakku people didn't share like this, so--" Rey pressed her back to the tree and knew exactly what to say. She smiled widely as she thought it, and reached out her free hand to rest on Poe's knee, since he had scooted out of contact. "We should probably find out, don't you think?"

Finn smiled back. "Poe? If that's okay with you?"

Poe was looking back and forth between them with happiness that looked like pride, like he'd just seen them learn something new. Rey beamed back at him, sure that she'd done that right. Better to offer Poe the first kiss, rather than taking it for herself. 

Better to watch and see what she could learn before she tried it herself for the first time.

"Yeah, buddy, it's fine with me. Come here."

Poe completed the circle by taking Finn's free hand; it felt right, then, for Rey to leave her hand on Poe's knee. Finn scooted close to him, moving to sit up on his heels as he leaned in to touch his lips to Poe's. 

The first contact of their mouths was light and careful, and Rey tightened her grip on Finn's hand instinctively. He squeezed back but didn't open his eyes or turn away from Poe. Their lips brushed together again and then pressed, parting softly. 

She could hear their tongues and lips wetting each other, but the kiss stayed slow and gentle, and Rey felt her own desire to kiss Finn become rapidly more than theoretical. She'd never seen people kiss like this in real life, and barely in vids, but--this was what she wanted, she knew that. 

And it didn't look too hard, or like it was rushing toward anything else. Her pussy clenched up a little as she thought of _anything else_ , and, oh, yeah. Now she was getting a little wet, a little tingly. If this was how it started, she might like to sit back, put her hand between her legs...

Poe's hand, the one Finn wasn't holding (the one Rey wasn't holding) came up to cradle Finn's cheek, and Finn tilted into it. The kiss got deeper, wetter--she thought that she could see the moment when both of them forgot she was watching. She could feel the Force running through both of them, and the way the Force in each of them reached out to twine with the Force in the other. It tightened and coiled at their groins, and she realized she could feel the same in herself. The Force was strongest there, where blood and life burned the hottest.

She wondered if _that_ was what the old Jedi had been so worried about, and she smiled, leaning back against the tree, still with a hand on Poe's knee and her other hand held in Finn's. She wouldn't have been able to see it if it were only her and Finn, if she weren't watching them together and waiting her turn. 

Just when things seemed to be getting very interesting indeed, Finn jerked back from Poe and turned his face away from him, and from Rey as well, even drawing his hand back from hers. She let go, looking to Poe for an explanation.

Poe bit his reddened lip and looked apologetic. But he tilted his head toward Finn and shrugged. _See?_

Finn talked about kissing and having orgasms like they were completely separate things. He talked about masturbating with a team, which had to mean he used to--he'd been _trained_ to--Rey's eyes went wide with horror as she finally put it together, now that she had a second without Finn's earnest gaze begging her to want what he wanted.

Poe nodded sharply and flapped his hand at her in warning. Rey nodded quickly back and wrangled her face into a reasonable-looking smile by the time Finn turned toward them.

The Force in him was all well-regulated and self-contained again, as if he'd never kissed Poe at all. Poe still showed signs of arousal, despite the upsetting interruption--Rey could feel the same in herself--but Finn had made himself utterly calm again. 

He was smiling hopefully at her. 

Rey couldn't help but smile back for real, reaching for his hand. "My turn?"

Finn nodded. "Your turn. Our turn."

Rey shifted to sit on her heels, keeping her other hand on Poe's knee for balance. She thought she'd do fine without the tree at her back, as long as she had Poe and Finn both with her. 

Finn leaned in to meet her. Their lips met--his a little wet still from Poe's mouth--and it was only a touch, but it made Rey shiver all over, her fingers tightening. Poe's hand settled lightly over hers, and she smiled against Finn's mouth and tilted her head, darting her tongue out to trace Finn's parted lips. 

Finn's breath puffed against her lips, and his tongue met hers. Rey felt the contact through her whole body, her nipples tightening and pussy warming. She tilted her head and tried for a deeper kiss, opening her mouth wider and licking more boldly into Finn's mouth. Finn matched her, and she could feel the kiss connecting more than just their bodies, the Force between them joining, brightening, concentrating--

She pulled away a second before Finn would have, turning her face aside so that he could turn away without her seeing him do it. Poe's hand squeezed hers, and when she gave him a sideways look his gaze was warm, full of admiration. She knew without a doubt that he would copy that maneuver the next time he kissed Finn, and she smiled and winked before she raised her head, smiling again for Finn to see. He spent another few breaths looking away, settling himself, but when he met her eyes Rey was ready.

"So," she said. "What's this about picking berries?"

The brown of Finn's face deepened over his cheeks and the tops of his ears. Poe laughed and shook his head, pointing at Finn. "You explain it, it was your idea."

"We don't really need any berries," Finn said quickly. "But there are flowers, we should pick some flowers. Or eat." He reached for the pack he'd brought, setting it down between the three of them. "I brought snacks."

* * *

Rey excused herself from joining Poe and Finn that night, and Poe didn't even have to cut Finn off from pressing her about it. No doubt she needed a little time to get her head around the idea. Also, she probably really was tired. 

After they'd jerked off and washed their hands they proceeded to the cuddling portion of the evening, watching the episode with the dance, which was Poe's favorite and Finn promised he didn't mind seeing again. But at the first lull in the dialogue, Finn said, "I don't think being tired would've stopped me from needing to discharge. Especially not when I was nineteen."

Finn was all of four years older than Rey, if Poe was remembering the conversions right. Poe smiled wearily and squeezed Finn around the shoulders. "Women are different, Finn."

"Lots of physiological variations exist, but everybody has needs," Finn insisted firmly. 

Poe considered trying to explain what he'd meant and immediately gave it up as a bad job. Female Stormtroopers were probably trained to get off just as fast as the male ones, and with just as little care for whether they were in the mood for it or not. 

"Yeah, of course," Poe said instead. "It's probably just that it's going to be so new for her, not being by herself."

Finn sighed and nodded, snuggling into Poe's shoulder, and then it was the part where everybody was gazing at everybody else across crowded candlelit rooms. Poe let himself fall into the story, and the illusion that his own love life was not the most complicated one he knew of.

Finn all but tucked Poe into bed when the holo was over, admonishing him to sleep well, and Poe nodded agreeably. He didn't think he'd have any trouble at all sleeping; he was right on the edge of it when he heard BB-8 chirp outside his door.

"No, never mind, he's sleeping," Rey whispered. 

BB-8 chirped back. _He will want to speak to you._

Poe pushed up on one elbow and called out, "BB-8's right, Rey. Come on in."

There was a little silence from outside--he smiled to himself, picturing Rey realizing how little sound the doors blocked--and then the door slid back and she stepped through, looking apologetic. 

Poe sat up properly, running his hands through his hair. "BB-8, you mind standing lookout?"

_No one will overhear_ , BB-8 promised, spinning in place to show vigilance. 

Rey shut the door, and Poe said, "You want me to come sit at the table with you, or are you okay sitting here?"

Rey shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'm not--I shouldn't have--"

"Rey," Poe said gently. "I wanted to talk to you alone. I would've come to you if I knew you were still awake. Sit down somewhere, so we can talk."

Rey closed her eyes, took a breath, and then said carefully and deliberately, "Thank you, Poe."

She opened her eyes and came over to the bed, sitting down at the foot of it. Enough light filtered in from outside that he could see her, but the dimness of the room made this feel safe, secret. 

At least, it felt that way to Poe. Rey was sitting with her hands in fists on her knees, not looking at him, her bare shoulders tense as tow lines. 

"Do you have questions?" Poe prompted gently. 

She was, as Finn had pointed out an hour or two ago, even younger than Finn was, and she'd been alone--on _Jakku_ \--for nearly her whole life. Force knew what she'd made of all that under the tree today, even if she'd been able to play along impressively. 

"I can tell you what Finn told me about what he's used to, why he needs to do things this way."

Rey shook her head. "I understand, I think. First Order couldn't let Stormtroopers be distracted or suborned by desire, so they trained them to separate sex from affection. You're trying to ease Finn into connecting them again." 

Poe blinked at that neat summation, which made all his floundering in the last two days seem like a sensible plan. He nodded.

"I want to help. I want--" Her shoulders jerked. "I want to be with Finn, I want to be--I want to not be alone."

Poe nodded, preparing to assure her that she could take her time, or that it was totally normal to be disappointed that her sex life with their mutual boyfriend was going to be decidedly nonstandard for a while. 

Before he could say any of that, Rey went on, "I just don't know _how_."

Poe desperately wanted that to be some kind of existential question about how best to be a supportive girlfriend and not the very concrete kind of not-knowing he suspected it was. "You don't know... which part, exactly?"

Rey glared at him. The heat in her gaze lit up every bit of the thirteen years' difference in their ages for Poe to see much too clearly. "I know all the _parts_ , I know how it _works_ , I just--"

She looked down again, shoulders slumping as her indignation deserted her. "I can't finish in five minutes. Or ten. I don't--I don't really know how to finish at all."

Poe didn't let himself wince. "I know it's, uh--it's not so obvious, when it's not just--" Poe kept a completely straight face while he made the same obscene illustrative gesture Finn had made out under the tree today.

Rey was startled into giggling. She clapped a hand over her mouth and glanced toward the door, but when she looked back at Poe he smiled encouragingly. She laughed harder behind her fingers. 

Poe leaned back against the head of his bunk and smiled wider, letting himself feel an almost certainly premature rush of relief. If he could make her laugh about this, he could find a way to get her--get both of them--through to the other side of this particular debris field.

"Sorry, it wasn't that funny, I just..." Rey turned toward him as she spoke, mirroring his posture against the foot end of the bunk. 

Poe waved it off. "I know, it's fine. And, I mean," Poe made a little motion toward the jerkoff gesture again. "It is pretty silly, really. Have you ever seen...?"

Rey bit her lip, losing some of her humor as she shook her head. "I... mostly focused on not having to. Not that I think I have to now! I want to--I mean, not--I--"

Poe shook his head, waving it off again. "No, of course, I hear you. Not a lot of guys like Finn on Jakku, right?"

She shook her head and then said, almost managing to sound matter of fact and not shy, "None. And none like you, either."

Poe did not let himself get distracted on the question of whether that was _no brother-boyfriends I could go to for sex advice_ or something genuinely flirtatious. If Rey's pickings had been as slim as he suspected they were on Jakku, he wouldn't be surprised if she couldn't tell the difference.

"And no girls--women--you liked that way either?" Poe asked, though that was the strictest formality. If she'd ever gone to bed with a woman she would _definitely_ know her way around her own equipment. 

Rey looked briefly startled by the idea, then quickly shook her head. "No. Nobody gender-variant and nobody of another species, either. Nobody."

Poe nodded. "And--sorry, just to be clear--when you say _finish_ you mean having an orgasm, right?"

Rey tensed a little but nodded. 

"Okay," Poe said, trying to remember everything he'd ever heard a woman say--or do, or direct him to do--about it. "Do you want advice, or holos, or..." Rey was drawing in tighter, starting to close off, which looked like a no. Poe aimed himself at the last open route he could see. "Did you want me to help?"

Rey's body folded tighter, but her chin tipped up and her eyes went wide. Poe felt the bone-certainty of his shot striking dead center on the target. 

"Okay." His smile came out a little wobbly and uncertain, but probably better that than anything too smooth and confident. "Okay. We can do that. I'm happy to do that with you, Rey. Okay?"

She returned an equally wobbly smile, but didn't uncurl. "Okay."

Poe nodded, giving her a couple of seconds to state some boundaries, or blurt out that they could maybe try it tomorrow. 

When she just kept watching him, waiting for what he would do next, Poe raised both hands and scrubbed them over his face and through his hair. He took a couple of seconds to acclimate to the idea that he was actually going to do this. Touch her, maybe taste, and if he was lucky--if he worked hard and brought all his skills to bear--he might just see her come for the first time in her life. 

He felt like the engines were starting up under him and he had the whole galaxy ahead.

Poe lowered his hands to see that Rey had already relaxed a little at the sight of his hesitation. He offered her a smile. "How do you feel about pre-flight checklists, Rey?"

She frowned a little, seeming baffled by his non sequitur, but not unhappy. "Absolutely necessary. If there's time."

Poe's smile widened. "We've got plenty of time here, don't we? Nobody's shooting at us. Tomorrow's my rest day, and you can't be on a work rotation yet. Or does Luke expect you to be up meditating at dawn?"

Rey shook her head cautiously. "I've got time."

"Okay, so we go step by step, then. First I'm going to move a little bit closer to you." Poe swung around to sit with his back against the wall, halfway down the bed. There was still half an arm's length between Rey's toes and his left leg, but it changed the whole trajectory required to close the space. 

"And then, if you want, you can come closer to me, or we can just sit and talk until--"

Rey moved decisively, swinging around to sit at his side, her shoulder pressed to his. There was hardly any difference in their heights like this.

"Check and check," Rey said firmly. "What next?"

Poe snorted. "Well, this next one could be about like having _make sure the engine works right_ as a single checklist item when there are a dozen indicators in front of you and twice as many diagnostics you might have to run. Because you need to get so you're feeling kind of relaxed and ready."

Rey nodded. "While you're touching me."

"Yeah," Poe said. "We can do that in stages, or--"

"You should touch me, then."

Poe swallowed, stomach swooping, and he was suddenly aware of his dick in a way that really, really was not relevant or helpful to the task at hand. He raised his left arm, curling it around Rey's shoulders and tucking her close to his side, the same way he had done with Finn an hour or so ago. "How about this?"

Rey took a couple of deep, deliberate breaths, and then relaxed against him. It felt purposeful. She wasn't forgetting to be tense or afraid; she was relaxing the muscles of her body because that was the next step in the checklist. 

"This is fine," Rey said evenly. 

"Okay." Poe ran his hand gently down her bare shoulder and over her armwrap, stopping at her elbow before he stroked slowly back up. "So let's just sit with this for a little while and get used to it."

Rey nodded against his chest. He felt her making small movements and glanced down just as she tentatively laid her hand on his thigh. His breath went out a little louder than he meant it to, and Rey tilted her head up to look at him.

"Oh," she said softly. "Finn doesn't touch you."

"Doesn't mean you have to." Poe didn't move his thigh away from the warm touch of her hand, though. His sleep pants were thin. It was almost as good as skin, and more than he'd gotten from anybody since before he was captured.

"But I can choose to," Rey said hesitantly. "And you'd like it if I did."

He'd rather do himself all kinds of violence than pressure her to do anything for him that she didn't want, but nothing in the Galaxy was going to make him tell her no. "I do like that. Do you like this?"

He resumed moving his hand in gentle sweeps when she nodded--he'd stopped when she touched him. She imitated him, petting up and down his thigh. She didn't veer from that path, and Poe was much too old to be getting this much charge off a simple touch, but his body didn't seem to have gotten that briefing. He brought his hand up to Rey's shoulder, squeezing there and tucking her closer. She twisted into the touch, pressing closer still and tilting her face up to his.

"I think we should try kissing," Rey said, sounding a little breathless herself. "Please. I think that would help."

* * *

Poe's gaze dropped to her lips even before Rey finished speaking, and she realized with a thrill of delight and terror that he wanted to kiss her. Not just as a way to help, not just as a mechanical reflex like his response to her touch might be. He _wanted_ to, with her.

And she trusted him not to want it to the exclusion of what _she_ wanted, even if trusting him didn't quiet the rapid flutter of her heartbeat. It wasn't all fear.

Poe licked his lips and dragged his gaze back up to meet hers. "Did that... when you kissed Finn, did it make you feel that way?"

Rey bit her lip and nodded. "And... when I watched him kissing you, too. Maybe even more."

Poe grinned, his eyes bright and his teeth gleaming in the little light that filtered into the room. "I liked watching the two of you together too. I was glad you didn't mind me staying."

"I was glad you stayed," Rey insisted quickly. "It wasn't just not minding, it was--I was so glad you were there, I would have got something wrong without you. And I liked it, I liked... you. I like you."

"I like you too, Rey. Why don't we try--" Poe tilted his head down toward hers, angling so their noses wouldn't collide.

Rey twisted, bracing one hand against the wall and letting the other stay on his thigh, as she met his lips with hers. For a moment it was the same tentative touch of lips as her first kiss with Finn, but when she darted her tongue out to touch his lip, Poe had had the same idea, and the wet tips pressed against each other, slick and sensitive. Poe's breath shuddered against her lips, and Rey made a startled little choking sound and opened her mouth wider, eager to feel more, to make Poe feel everything. 

Her awareness of the Force wasn't all bright and clear the way it had been in the forest earlier, but she could feel it just beyond her fingertips, like something glimpsed from the corner of her eye. She could almost sense the patterns she and Poe would make as their mouths moved over each other--and if she moved in closer, so that her thigh was across his, that would--

Poe broke the kiss with a gasp, and Rey stared at him, panting, and slowly realized that she had spread her legs wide, that her thigh was very nearly stretched across his crotch, and her whole body was hot and tingling. Poe had one hand on the small of her back, one still carefully on her shoulder, and Rey's hands were on his shoulder and upper arm. 

"Okay," Poe said. "Okay, so that--that worked well, I think?"

"Very," Rey agreed. "Yes, very well, should we--what--"

Poe used the very slightest pressure of his hands to guide her in for another kiss, like piloting a ship with incredibly sensitive controls. Rey giggled to herself a little-- _docking maneuver_ \--and Poe was grinning when her mouth bumped up against his.

"Good, it's good to remember," Poe said, giving her little light teasing kisses now, making her follow his mouth for more. "That this is all pretty silly, and fun, and something you do with people you like to play with."

She'd never really played with anyone before she joined the Resistance, but she had played silly teasing games with Finn yesterday in the forest, and gotten him and Poe to tell the story about the Force berries. This could be another game, not something so serious, not something she had to hoard and hide and make rules about. 

The Force liked that, she thought; she could sense it more clearly now, when she relaxed and didn't try so hard. It bloomed out in her and in Poe, unfurling between them. Don't hold on so tight, don't try to control it, relax and let it be what it wants to be.

"I like you, Poe Dameron," Rey said. "So what next?"

"Next..." Poe shifted his hand from the small of her back to her hip. She shivered a little--instinct, reflex. The Force in her retreated a little, going rigid in automatic defense. 

Rey countered that automatic response by leaning in to kiss Poe again, licking silly little kisses across his lips until she could feel herself easing again. Poe relaxed in response, assuring her that she'd handled that correctly. 

"Okay," Poe said, as if nothing had happened--or nothing that required them to speak of it, at least. "Now you put your hand over my hand, and you move it where you want it."

Rey nodded, taking a bracing breath as she settled her hand on top of Poe's. She remembered how he had taken things in little steps--move closer, then touch--and let her hand rest there a moment, feeling the warmth of his hand under hers, the bones and tendons under his skin. 

She traced her fingers along his, closing her eyes and feeling how he would touch her.

Poe's breath shook, and she kissed him softly, without thinking, at the knowledge that he was nervous and excited too. That was when her sense of the Force in each of them snapped into focus, when she realized that it moved with the same fluttering excitement through them both, through his fingers interlaced with hers. 

Now that she could really see him, really sense him, it felt like the easiest thing in the world to bring his hand across the top of her thigh, to the place between her legs where the hottest, brightest energy was gathering.

Poe groaned against her lips, and she knew he could feel, even if not through the Force, how hot she was there. Maybe he could feel her wetness, seeping through the thin cloth of her pants. His fingers stayed still, not pressing in of their own accord, just obeying her grip as she placed them there. She tried moving his hand a little, pressing in and sliding up and down the way she touched herself. Poe's fingers turned her uncertain guidance into a confident caress.

She nodded, bumping her lips and nose against his before she managed to say, "Can you--slowly, but--"

"Sure," Poe said, giving her a little more pressure without her fingers pushing his. "I'll go really slow. You just say if you need me to stop or change course, right?"

Rey nodded again, and then Poe's thick, warm fingertips were rubbing her through her pants, over the lips of her pussy and just barely teasing between them before he drew back, rubbing his palm over her clit, then back to using his fingers. 

"Oh," Rey murmured. "Oh, that's--"

"Shh, it's okay." Poe kissed her softly again and kept up the slow touches. "It can take a while to get anywhere, especially the first time, but if this feels good we'll keep it up for a little while, okay? Just this. We're warming up the drives now, gotta let 'em cycle through."

Rey giggled, nerves but also just the silliness of this, of Poe guiding her so patiently through figuring out how to touch her own body. She felt the way her laughter moved her body, the way it made her tense and relax under Poe's hand. Her fingers were curled close to his as he touched her, her other hand still on his shoulder. She moved that hand until she found the bare skin of his neck. She touched him lightly there, testing whether that was as good as touching his thigh.

His fingers pressed harder against her in response, almost inside her through the soft barrier of her pants, and he kissed her again. She could feel the way the Force in him surged, wanting more but carefully holding back. He eased the pressure of his fingers and went back to his careful slow rhythm. Cycling the drives.

Her hips moved a little, chasing his touch. She pressed her hand over his again, wanting more, closer--wanting the brush of skin instead of the increasingly soaked rub of her pants. 

"Can you," she said, and then remembered that he had told her to put his hand where she wanted it. She tugged his hand away and he obeyed instantly, and only huffed out a breath on her lip that might have been a laugh when she made a frustrated noise for the loss of his touch. She had to take her other hand from his neck to shove her pants down while still holding his hand in hers. She made another frustrated noise; she was positioned all wrong to get them down properly.

"Here, can I help?" Poe murmured, and he positioned his free hand opposite hers, helping her peel her pants down enough. As soon as she felt air touching her where she was wet, she pulled his hand back, guiding his fingers there.

She stopped breathing at the first gentle touch of his fingers--not as rough-callused as her own, but hard from work. Poe's fingers weren't as soft as Finn's, which had always had the protection of gloves and gauntlets and machines. 

She wasn't breathing, so the soft, aching sound didn't come from her but from Poe, tracing his fingertips over the wet folds of her. He went slowly again, as if the terrain would be wholly different for the loss of that layer of clothing, but she felt an impatient throb deep inside and she wanted more. She needed something to _happen_. Her hips jerked again and she pressed on his hand, making his finger dip inside, finding that tight, tender opening.

Rey went still then, her breath speeding up in dizzy anticipation of--she didn't know quite what. 

"Shh, shh," Poe murmured, drawing his finger back, not far, just stroking along the sensitive edges of that place, curling his hand to press against her with the heel of his hand at the same time. "Shh, come here, we don't have to go any further than this, Rey."

She kissed him again--she was pretty sure that was what _come here_ meant when she was already naked in his lap with his finger almost but not quite inside her. One of his hands left her, and she made a frustrated noise into his mouth and reached out without thinking. She had one hand on his neck, one covering his between her legs. She grabbed his wrist with neither of them, stopping him from reaching for something else. 

He went very still under her, and she was aware that she was half on top of him, that she was _stronger_ in this uncanny way. She was holding his hand still with the Force. She released it hastily, trying to pull away, but as soon as she let go Poe's hand was on her again, steadying her and keeping her close.

"Hey, hey, it's okay--it's okay, Rey, that was great. That was _great_ ," Poe insisted, touching her cheek as he met her eyes. 

"I'm glad you did that," he insisted firmly. "That lets me know that you won't hesitate to stop me from doing anything you're not happy with, and that's good, because I don't want to do anything you don't like, okay? I'm here to help you do what you want to do."

"I don't want to break your wrist if you startle me," Rey said, her voice coming out wobbly instead of stern and Jedi-like, aware of her solemn responsibilities. For some reason that made him smile and twitch the finger that was so close to being inside her. Was she wetter than she had been a few seconds ago? Hotter? Poe's face looked more flushed, and he coaxed her into another kiss.

"So how about instead of grabbing my wrist," Poe murmured, "you reach behind me and get that little plastic bulb of lubricant off the shelf by the head of the bed? The pink one, you see it?"

Rey didn't bother looking; now that she'd used the Force once it was eager to be used again, and she followed the trajectory of Poe's reach and picked up the soft-sided plastic bulb without having to open her eyes or take her lips from Poe's.

She was also definitely getting wetter around his teasing finger now. 

"Everybody likes doing what they're good at," Poe mumbled against her lips. She thumped the bulb against the back of his head and captured his mouth in another kiss. 

"Bring it down where it's useful," Poe murmured, letting his fingers fall still and leaning the palm of his hand away from her body. She wanted to grind into him, but she brought the little bulb down instead, dripper-end down, to nestle between her belly and the heel of his hand.

Poe brought his hand back in, pressing the soft plastic against her where he'd been using the heel of his hand before. She pressed into the smooth, soft friction without thinking, and there was a gush of liquid over his finger. Everything was suddenly _very_ wet--she hadn't known it could be that wet, slippery and slick and easy. She gasped as his finger slid inside her, but there was no pain, just the first hint of something she'd wanted without understanding what she wanted, like the first bite of a new food she'd smelled cooking for hours.

"Get that out of the way for me, now?" Poe murmured, and even with his finger moving deeper inside her, introducing her to places in her own body she'd barely ever touched, some focused corner of her mind managed it. She lifted away the bulb of lubricant and tipped it upright to float in the air. Then it was Poe's hand against her clit again and Poe's finger was curling inside her, finding a place that felt different, felt _more_.

"Oh, _oh_ ," Rey was gasping helplessly against his mouth, and everything was so wet, so easy, so _good_. This was beyond the wet abundance trees and rivers; she had an ocean lapping waves through her whole body, building higher and higher, till the air was full of salt and wet sounds and an endless rhythmic beating. 

It was unlike any furtive twinges of feeling she'd ever squeezed out of herself. Poe's fingers coaxed out something sharp and real; with Poe's guidance she was going somewhere. She never wanted it to end, and could hardly bear it, and she wanted it, wanted to get there, but she couldn't see the end. "How, Poe, how do I--I can't--"

"Sure you can," Poe murmured, shifting his angle and rhythm just slightly, making the sensations seem brand new all over again, freshly shocking. "Just ride it, Rey, you can do this. Breathe in and out and point your toes."

"What _toes_ ," Rey demanded. She was already twitching her hips in helpless response to his touches, holding a pink plastic bulb overhead with the Force, clinging to him with her hands and trying to remember to breathe. It wasn't fair to also ask her to keep track of her extremities. 

She tried anyway, and was distracted by the effort of working out how and where to point her toes that she couldn't resist the pleasure crashing over her wave upon wave until she was swamped, carried away. 

She was barely aware of the little squeaky sounds she was making, or the violently messy sound of something hitting the floor and exploding. There was only the feeling, an impossible crest of sensation, going on and on until the moment when it became too much. she jerked away from Poe's touch only to find that she'd gotten her angle of retreat wrong and it _hurt_.

"Shh, shh," Poe said, steadying her with a hand on her hip as he slipped his hand free of her. The brief hurt of that awkward movement faded quickly into a warm pleasurably exhausted ache, and Rey let herself sink against Poe's chest, her face against his shoulder as she breathed in great loud gasps. After a while she realized that Poe was rubbing her back and singing softly in a half-hummed mumble. She wasn't using the Force for anything at all anymore, which probably meant she'd made a mess with the lubricant.

And she felt really, really good.

"Oh," she said after a while. "Oh, wow. Poe. That was--" She shifted her weight a little and realized she was still spread half-across his lap with her pants down, her wet slick pussy open and exposed, and she could feel his hard cock against the inside of her thigh. 

And all Poe was doing was rubbing her back and singing quietly to her. He couldn't feel nearly as good as she did right now, and right now she wanted _everyone_ to feel this good. She wanted to go wake Finn and--

But it wouldn't be like this with Finn. Finn wouldn't like it like this. But Poe would, and Poe was right here, smelling good and feeling warm and still humming softly in her ear. She could at least share this with Poe. 

"Do you..." Rey shifted a little, to feel the hardness of him against her thigh at the same time she rubbed her nose gently against the side of his throat and slid one hand up into his hair. Poe went suddenly silent, holding very still under her; her sense of the Force was all soft-edged, loose and easy, but the Force in him was suddenly frozen. 

She pulled back a little to meet his eyes; they looked even darker than usual, his pupils wide and dark. "Do you want to put my hand where you want it?"

He smiled a little, relaxing back against the wall. "You don't even need to use your hand, R-- _fuck_."

She did it as instinctively as she caught his wrist before, touching him without using her hands. It was a gentler touch this time, just feeling the way that so much energy and sensation was concentrated in that one place. 

"Too much?" She felt it again, how she was stronger than he was, how she could do anything. It meant she had to be careful, she knew, but Poe was panting, clinging to her, and she could feel the way his cock throbbed at her touch. 

"Not--not what I meant but--fuck, please, yes, please, can you--move it...?"

Rey experimented cautiously, and found that she _could_ move her grip, creating a gradient of pressure that washed up and down over his cock like a wave. She kissed his throat where his pulse was hammering, wound her fingers in his hair and rocked herself lazily against him. Now that the first oversensitivity had worn off, she experimented in pressing herself against his hip, startling a little moan out of herself.

Poe groaned, his grip on her tightening, and his hips jerked up sharply, pressing his cock into her thigh. She was startled enough to lose her careful Force grip, but Poe didn't seem to notice, grinding up under her again. 

When she rocked back into him the shivery aftershock pleasure of it was less startling, but she moaned again anyway just to hear the noise he made in response. He gasped hard, and she felt his cock jerking against her thigh, wetness seeping through his sleep pants and hers as he came. 

She kept rocking against him, though she could feel that the pleasure of it was fading out rather than building, until Poe stirred from his slump against the wall, bringing his hand to the bare skin of her hip.

"You going again?"

Rey shivered at the touch of Poe's fingers, and she stilled, shaking her head. Better to stop with this warm _maybe_ feeling than push all the way to too much. "No, just--it feels _so good_. Does it feel like that every time?"

"Well, everybody's wired differently," Poe said. "I've been told by some people with your kind of equipment that it feels better sometimes than ours, but sometimes it's harder to get there, so it seems like it all evens out."

Rey sighed happily, leaning into the warmth of Poe's body. Poe tightened his arms around her, rubbing her back again. 

"So," he said after a while. "Even if there were no other purpose to this, I'd be really, really happy that I could help you with this tonight, but... are you going to be ready for tomorrow?"

The thought of it sent a little chill over Rey's drowsy feeling of contentment. Tomorrow would be much more complicated--no kissing, and her own fingers instead of Poe's, and...

She twisted away from Poe to survey the state of the floor. "Where did you get the lubricant? Because I'm going to have to get more. And clean this up."

"Medical hands it out, it's not a problem," Poe assured her, tugging her back toward him. "And we'll throw down a towel, it's nothing, it wipes right off. But you didn't get your share of cuddling today, so come back here."

"The cuddling part is important, is it?" Rey didn't actually have any argument with that, although it was getting a bit chilly and sticky. She tugged her pants up a bit and snuggled closer anyway, resting her head on Poe's shoulder again.

"The cuddling part is very, very important," Poe assured her. "Now, let's talk about how we're going to make tomorrow work. We can get there, we just need to figure out what you need and how to make it happen."

* * *

Finn looked forward to that evening's discharge session even more than he had the two nights before. He was definitely edging into spotty-faced cadet territory, but he couldn't stop thinking about how good it would be to have a real team for discharge, Poe and Rey both flanking him and all having their discharge together. And then afterward, he could kiss both of them, and maybe they'd even like to try kissing each other.

He had spent some time, maybe too much time, thinking about whether they would like to kiss each other, and what it would look like. Poe liked kissing him, and Rey liked kissing him, and he could assure both of them that the other was really nice to kiss, so maybe they would want to try? But maybe that was weird. 

It was probably weird. They were only friends so far, and just because Poe was his boyfriend and Rey was his girlfriend, that didn't mean they had to want to kiss and hold hands with each other.

But they would all be doing discharge together, and they would all stay and cuddle together and watch holos after. That would be good. That would be really, really good. Finn couldn't wait.

The day crawled by, but finally supper was over and Finn was holding Rey's hand, following Poe back to his quarters. They'd just gone inside--the tarp wasn't even set out on Poe's bunk yet--when BB-8 rolled up to Poe's door and beeped urgently for him. 

Finn had started to learn a little of the astromech bots' beep language, but BB-8 was using a bunch of codes he didn't know yet. Finn had to rely on the faces Poe and Rey made for a sense of what was going on; they were both intent, but not really worried.

"Okay, sorry," Poe said. "I should be back soon--wait for me?"

"Yeah, of course," Finn said firmly, and Rey squeezed his hand and gave him a sideways smile.

Poe grinned. "Great. I'm sure you two can keep each other entertained somehow till I get back."

He gave Finn a quick kiss like a suggestion, and then, like it was just the same thing, he turned to Rey and kissed her too. 

That kiss was shorter, both of them jerking back like they were startled by it even though Poe was the one who did it and Rey had obviously seen it coming even more clearly than she saw every move Finn made when they tried sparring together that morning.

"Was that," Poe said, his eyes on Rey's. "Uh. Was that okay? Sorry, I just--"

"No--I mean, yes!" Rey was smiling sort of nervously, but it was a genuine smile, just flustered. "It was fine. Good. Okay!" 

Poe nodded, his wide smile coming back. "Okay. I'll be back in a little while, then."

He walked out hurriedly and Finn stared after him, then stared at Rey instead. He grinned at her and she grinned back, and then they both lunged in for a kiss. They collided awkwardly and bounced back, laughing, and tried again before they had even stopped laughing. They didn't bounce off so awkwardly this time, but they couldn't really kiss either. They just kept pressing their mouths together and then giggling harder, until they had their arms around each other for balance and Finn turned his face away to try to catch his breath. 

"Maybe we should have Poe supervise more," Rey said to his shoulder. "Apparently we can't figure kissing out when he's not here."

Finn experimentally kissed her hair, and then the top of her neck. Rey shivered--he could feel it through her whole body where she was pressed close--and he jerked back.

"Oh," Rey picked her head up, meeting his eyes with her own eyes wide. "Sorry, was that--is that wrong? I've never really, with anyone else..."

"No, no, it's fine, everyone does things differently," Finn said quickly, wanting to be as reassuring for Rey as Poe had been for him. "I just--I thought maybe that felt weird? Ticklish or something?"

Rey shook her head, then tilted it with a crooked smile. "A little weird, maybe? But I... I liked it. Would you do it again?"

She stepped in close to him, tilting her head to the side, and Finn set one hand cautiously on her side as he pressed his lips carefully to her throat. She didn't shiver this time, but she brought her hand to the back of his neck and said, "Maybe... again? Slower?"

Something about this felt--not just weird, but dangerous, or dirty, or something. Still, he'd done dangerous things with Rey before, weird and dangerous. And he'd worked sanitation; he knew that no matter how dirty you got doing anything, you could wash it off at the end of the shift. You didn't shrink from a job your teammates were doing with you. So it was all right, really. It had to be all right.

His heart was still beating too fast, something fluttering in his stomach. He reached for Rey's hand and tangled their fingers together before he pressed his lips to her throat again, slower this time, dragging the kiss down her soft skin until she shivered and made a little sound.

The shiver and the sound seemed to echo through his own body, and this time he stifled the impulse to jerk away from her, despite the dangerous stirring he felt. They were going to discharge as soon as Poe got back anyway, so it hardly even mattered, did it?

He touched his lips to her throat again, a little lower, and Rey's fingers tightened harder on his. Her other hand touched the side of his throat, and Finn gave his own little shiver, making a noise like she had made. He could feel his penis starting to thicken. He froze, fighting the urge to stop, pull away, calm his body and mind. 

Rey looked up at him with a little worried frown. "Sorry, was that--did you not like it?"

"No, I did!" Finn quickly insisted, and Rey's frown deepened slightly. Jedi, truth-seer, not that she needed to be when he was showing her his bare face. "I mean, I think I did? It felt sort of... scary, but I think in a fun way, not a probably-going-to-die-now way?"

Rey touched her fingers to his lips instead, making him go still all over again. It helped him stop talking, but it did not contribute to making his mind or his body calm. 

Rey pulled her fingers back a millimeter and said, "Sorry, it's fine. If you don't want me to touch you I won't, or if it's too much right now. I just..."

Rey trailed off, looking away, and that wasn't Rey at all. He couldn't tell which part was a lie, exactly, but Rey wasn't the trailing off into uncertain silence type, like some Alderaanian maiden. 

Unless he'd made her nervous, or made her feel bad about how she wanted to do things. It was her first time doing this with others, after all. He remembered the way Poe had needed him to talk the first time, to be sure he wasn't alone. Rey was used to being alone, but she had hated that. Maybe she needed touch the way Poe had needed his voice.

Finn pressed his lips to her fingers, still hovering in front of his mouth. Rey looked up with a startled smile and said in a rush, "I have to tell you--I kissed Poe last night, actually."

Finn blinked. "You... when?"

Rey winced. "After I went to bed? I really was tired, but I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about trying this with you and how strange it was going to be, so I came to see if you were still cuddling and watching holos, but Poe had already gone to bed. But he heard me outside the door and told me to come in, so I told him I was nervous about discharging with a team when I've never done it before. He wanted to help--give me advice--and he told me to try to--to get so I felt like I wanted to, needed to, before we started, because..." 

Rey waved a hand toward her own pelvis. "Sometimes this needs warmup time. It's not as quick as yours unless you've had a lot of practice."

"Oh," Finn said, glancing down. "Yeah, Stormtroopers with vulvas were allowed to have little," Finn gestured with both hands, describing the shape of one of the little rounded wands. "Assistive devices, so they could be more efficient. You don't have one of those?"

Rey tilted her head, looking fascinated, and shook her head. "No, I... no. Just fingers."

Finn tried to picture the angles required and winced. "Doesn't that hurt your wrist?"

Rey grimaced. "You can see why I didn't bother much."

Finn nodded grim agreement. He couldn't imagine that he would have bothered discharging every day if he was all alone and there were no screens to watch, and at least the mechanics were pretty straightforward for him. 

Then he frowned, thinking back through what Rey had been saying. "Wait, how--how were you getting ready?"

Rey bit her lip and then said cautiously, "By kissing you? I know it's weird, but it makes me feel sort of--"

"Me too!" Finn said immediately, grinning at her, and Rey instantly grinned back. "Sometimes, uh, sometimes _too_ much, because I don't need so much warmup, but--maybe it's not weird, if it's both of us?"

"Even if it is weird, it's our kind of weird," Rey said decidedly, and then her gaze dropped back to his mouth. "Do you think we could...?"

"Yeah, I think," Finn said, and then his lips were on Rey's again, and they were kissing in slow, careful touches and then faster, wetter. He kept his body angled away from hers, pulled back to take a breath when the tingly feelings got too intense, and held on tight to her hand. 

Finn jerked back at the sound of the door opening, but it was just Poe, smiling. He looked back and forth between Finn and Rey and said cheerfully, "Ready to go?"

"I," Finn said, and it was too much suddenly, both of them there, and kissing and touching, and-- 

"I'm going to get the bed ready," Finn said abruptly, turning away from them both, and he added without looking back, "Poe, you should help Rey keep getting ready."

Finn busied himself with getting the tarp from where Poe kept it folded under his bunk. He hummed a little as he spread it out over the colorful blanket so that he wouldn't hear any little sounds from over by the door where Poe and Rey were still standing.

He stole a glance toward them when he'd finished smoothing out the tarp, and the swooping dangerous too-much feeling came back in a rush. Rey had both arms up around Poe's neck, the fingers of one hand sunk into the silky curls of his hair, and they were pressed tight together.

Finn shut his eyes and breathed. Poe, obviously, had excellent body control not to worry about touching Rey like that while kissing her. Or maybe Poe didn't even feel like that about kissing. Maybe he didn't get kissing and discharge all mixed up like Rey and Finn did. He was older than they were; he must have had lots more practice doing each of those different things.

Rey pulled back from Poe a second later and looked right at him, and Finn waved and said, "Are you ready, or...?"

Rey nodded firmly. "Let's go."

She led Poe over to the bunk, and Finn hurried to claim the spot in the middle, though it occurred to him as he did that there might not be any particular reason he should. "Wait, are you two boyfriend and girlfriend now? Since you like kissing each other?"

Poe and Rey were both in the process of sitting down at opposite ends of the bunk, and they both went still and looked at each other across Finn. 

"If you want...?" Poe offered, turning a hand palm-up toward Rey, like he was offering her a sweet. 

Rey stayed still a second longer, then gave a quick, jerky nod. "Yes, I think, yes. Yes."

Poe grinned, and then Rey grinned and Finn realized he was grinning too. "So we're a team, then!"

Poe laughed and sat back against the wall beside Finn, patting him hard on the thigh. "Yeah, we are, buddy. We're a team."

"We're all the teams," Rey agreed, settling next to him on the other side, so close he couldn't move without his arm brushing hers. "Kissing team, hand-holding team, discharge team, galaxy-saving team..."

Finn ducked his head to keep his smile half-hidden as he undid his pants. Rey moved beside him, pushing hers down to her thighs so that Finn caught a glimpse of bare skin and fluffy dark hair. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made him more aware of the sound of Poe moving on his other side. 

"So, flight sims," Finn said quickly, picking his head up and focusing. The same sim he and Poe had used each time popped up, now with a third position for Rey.

"So, eye control?" Rey said, still squirming a little beside him. She had to have her legs splayed out a little, that was just how the anatomy worked when she was using her fingers instead of an assistive device. There wasn't much space on the bunk for three, and Finn could feel the heat of her body on his left and the heat of Poe's on his right.

"Yep," Poe said. "Set your own difficulty level where it won't be too distracting for you to finish."

Rey made a stubborn little sound at that, not quite covering the sound of her dispensing something wet. 

Finn focused very intently on lining up the controls on the sim, running through all the calibrating eye movements twice and looking nowhere near his girlfriend or his boyfriend. His hand wrapped around his penis automatically, and it was all right, he told himself, to be feeling tingly and full already. That was what they were here for. 

"Ready?" He said, when both of their screens flashed. He kept his hand still. It was rude to rush ahead of your team too much.

"Ready," Poe agreed, with a little strain already creeping into his voice.

There was a little--wet--sound, something slick moving against something else smoothly--and then Rey wiggled next to him again and finally, finally said, "Ready."

All three of their sims launched into motion, and Finn sighed a little in relief as he began to move his hand on his penis, guiding his flyer through the first familiar stage of the sim. This was all right; this was normal. He was here with his team, and they were discharging together.

Rey squirmed again, her arm brushing his, and his ship spun out of control as a weird scary shiver rushed through him. His hand went still and for a second he couldn't hear anything but the wet sounds of Rey using her fingers, the smoother sound of Poe working his penis with his hand. Finn jerked his ship back on course, but it took another moment for him to remember to stroke himself properly, pushing toward discharge.

He relaxed into the routine, and for a minute everything seemed okay, as long as he focused on the little beeps and chirps of the flight sim and not the sounds from either side of him. That was normal, though, even if Poe and Rey were noisier than any whole cohort of Stormtroopers during discharge. 

Then Poe's breath caught in the familiar way Finn had learned to recognize in the last couple of days--because Finn was sitting next to Poe, waiting for him to finish, by the time he heard it. His own hand stilled as he listened to Poe's breath stuttering and his hand speeding faster on his penis. The dizzy feeling of _much too much_ swept through Finn even though he wasn't moving his own hand at all. 

He gripped himself tighter, felt his erection soften a little, and realized that he was lagging behind. It would be obvious that he wasn't concentrating properly, that he was getting distracted by his own team, and that was the _worst thing_. He swallowed hard and focused, moving his hand mechanically until the rhythm felt natural again. Poe was quiet beside him, and on his flight sim Poe was dodging asteroids faster and faster while Finn was barely managing to stay on course. 

Rey's ship was wobbling all over the place too, and Rey was still moving beside him, so at least Finn wasn't--

" _Oh_ ," Rey said, sounding a little shocked. He felt her body stiffen beside his, couldn't help catching sight of her heels digging into the bed and hear the wet sounds. "Oh, _ohh_ \--"

Rey had lived alone, Finn realized. Rey hadn't ever had to be quiet; she was like someone who never had his mask off and never learned to control his face behind it.

Finn's hand had gone still again, and he was _listening_ again, letting himself be distracted again by his teammate. He gritted his teeth and started again, trying to hear only his own breathing, see only the flight sim, feel only his hand moving in the familiar rhythm. There was no weird fluttery feeling, no vague unease. There was just this, just sitting with his team for something normal, something--

He fell into the rhythm again and now they were both being quiet and still. Neither of them did anything; it was just Finn himself, Finn's undisciplined brain, that was suddenly thinking of how much he'd like to be cuddling and kissing and watching a holo instead of forcing himself through a flight sim and discharge. 

He felt a prickle of frustration in his eyes and then realized that Poe and Rey weren't even playing their sims anymore. They were just waiting for him to catch up, and he was dragging the team down, holding everyone back. He tightened his grip until it hurt, squeezing his eyes shut and ducking his head.

"Hey, buddy," Poe said, his voice gentle and warm. "You need us to do something different?"

The fear dissipated abruptly.

He wasn't a Stormtrooper anymore. There weren't rules. No one would punish him for getting distracted, or taking the longest out of the team, or the team as a whole being slower than any other. They could do this any way they wanted, right? Poe had needed to be talked to, and Rey had needed to be kissed, and it was weird but Finn had done it for them, because--because he cared about them enough to do weird things and make irrational decisions about them.

And he realized abruptly that they would do things for him, too. Which probably meant they would pretend everything was not-weird for a minute.

"Could you just," Finn said, his voice wobbling a little with no mask to modulate it. "Uh, just--keep going until I finish?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," Poe said. "Hey, Rey, hit the corner marker--yeah, select--you got it."

Finn opened his eyes and sat back against the wall and focused on his flight sim again, except it wasn't a flight sim anymore--his screen was a shooting sim, connected up with whatever Poe and Rey were doing to either side. They flew fast, intricate patterns, both of them breathing faster and faster on either side of him, and Finn breathed easier and started working his hand again as he took aim and fired and fired and fired.

He was startled by his own discharge, snarling little curses through it because it threw off his aim, letting Rey glide to the end of the course unhindered. He managed to blow Poe up when he could focus his eyes again, at least, and Rey cheered while Poe bumped his shoulder against Finn's. "What was that? Favoritism?"

"Just timing," Finn said, grinning, and he got up and bolted to the refresher for first turn washing his hands. 

Poe and Rey were right on his heels, and they were all jostling each other to get at the cleaner. Finn laughed when he realized he and Poe were still flopping out of their pants while Rey's had slid down to her knees, forcing her to walk in mincing little steps like an Alderaanian lady. Rey shoved him even though she was laughing too, leaving wet handprints on his shirt and knocking him into Poe, who caught Finn with an arm around his waist, his hand on Finn's belly just above the triangle of skin bared by his open pants. 

Poe's laugh in his ear, and Poe's warm body against his back, made Finn shiver for a second-- _too much, too much_ \--but they were done with discharge now. He reached back and tickled Poe, getting his shirt wet too, and it took a while before anyone remembered to get their clothes in order and stop knocking around the tiny, crowded cubicle of the refresher. 

That was all right, though. They weren't sharing it with anybody, so they could take all the time they wanted.


End file.
